Blame the Moon
by VoodooChild3000
Summary: Movieverse. Semi-crossover, semi-AU, '89 finds Lydia Deetz and Sarah Williams high school seniors with a host of supernatural complications, namely one poltergeist and one goblin king. Throw in interdimensional war and it's a recipe for disaster. BJ/L J/S
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Because this crossover had to happen sooner or later. Inspiration for this actually came from games my buddies and I came up with as kids - since opinion was divided as to whether _Labyrinth _or _Beetlejuice _was a better movie, we just mishmashed the two together and had at it. (I'll keep this simple and not add in all the other weird crap we'd sometimes toss into these games, She-Ra and Rainbow Brite and Jem and the Holograms. We were kind of the epitome of '80's children.)

Lydia's age is never given in the film, but for plot purposes I'm saying she was sixteen, as Sarah was fourteen in _Labyrinth_, which came out in '86, so she would have been sixteen herself in '88. I apologize in advance for how incredibly cracky and disturbing this will inevitably turn out to be, though I'm also a closet sap at heart, so expect shippiness sooner or later.

* * *

Sarah hadn't wanted to move, not really, but since it was inevitable she'd decided to try and make the best of it. She was still ridiculously attached to her old bedroom and all the things within it, but she trusted Hoggle and Ludo and all the others would be able to find her if she called. She had to hope so, anyway, because her new home and new school were so very different from what she had known that her mind still hadn't quit reeling.

While she could hardly call where she'd used to live a city, it was more urban than Winter River, the tiny town where her father's job had taken them. It was picturesque enough, with maple woods at the outskirts whose leaves had gone half a dozen shades of fire with the approach of September, and many of the public buildings looked like something off a postcard, quaint without being saccharine. She could, she thought, eventually learn to like it here, once she got over the horrible feeling of being completely uprooted and transplanted.

Currently she was on her bike, coasting down a leaf-strewn street on her way to the grocery store. Since they were switching states, she hadn't bothered to take her driver's test before they moved, and it would probably be another few weeks before they were all settled enough to head to the nearest city with a DMV. Just now she didn't mind, though; the air was cold, biting against her cheeks, but she was well-bundled up in a heavy coat and gloves, and the autumn morning sunshine seemed to pour down in golden bucketfuls. Leaves whirled and scattered in her wake, crunching dryly beneath her bike tires, and in that unobserved, unguarded moment she allowed herself to grin. Seventeen she might be, but when she wasn't around her supposedly-sophisticated peers she let herself be the child she still was, in some ways. Even yet she hadn't lost a certain sense of wonder, though that had to be in part because of Toby, and how easy it was to see the world through his big blue eyes.

That smile dimmed a little when she rode past Miss Shannon's School for Girls, the all-girl private academy she'd be attending come September. The thought of meeting so many new girls secretly made her quail; the people she'd gone to school with were used to her, and if they thought her a little eccentric it was no worse than that. It had been a big high school, populated with all kinds of sub-cultures - punks, preps, neo-hippies, Rastafarian-wannabes, even a smattering of urban cowboys, but Miss Shannon's was much smaller and likely more homogenous. She'd have to be careful, or she'd wind up a social pariah, and she remembered _that _feeling all too keenly from childhood. No thank you.

A little breathless by the time she reached the grocery store, she didn't bother locking her bike in the bike rack - it wasn't necessary, here. Off came the gloves, and she shook back her long dark hair - down to her waist, now, longer even than it had been two years before. She was a pretty girl who had no idea just how pretty she really was, a breath of nature compared to the perm-fried-hair and bizarre fashion worn by most of her peers at school. It might be in style, but that didn't keep it from being butt-ugly, in her opinion. She favored simple jeans and T-shirts, with little or no makeup - in a sense she refused to alter her appearance too much lest one day her friends fail to recognize her.

The little bell above the door tinkled when she went in, the soft warm bakery-scent hitting her and reminding her it had been a while since breakfast. With a smile at the solitary clerk she grabbed a basket and dug her list out of her pocket, scanning the contents as she made her way down the dairy aisle. Milk, cheese, eeew yogurt, ground beef for dinner tonight….

She was so intent on it that she almost ran smack into the only other person in the store - a girl about her age, a short, slight girl swathed in black, with hair and eyes as dark as her clothes but skin the sort of pale that comes from studiously avoiding the outdoors. Sarah had heard of her; only one person in town could match that description. Lydia, Sarah thought her name was, Lydia Deetz, the girl who lived in the haunted house just outside of town. She'd heard all _kinds _of stories about that one-almost everyone in town had something to say about it, though no two accounts matched.

"Jeeze, I'm sorry," she said, holding her basket out of the way. "Wasn't looking where I was going."

Lydia - her name had to be Lydia - smiled a little, a small smile that transformed the slight reserve of her expression. She really was _tiny _- Sarah had to have a good three inches on her, though the effect was probably augmented by her clothes, her long black coat that was almost a cloak. "That's okay," she said. "I do that all the time. You're the girl who just moved here, aren't you?"

Sarah nodded, feeling unaccustomedly shy. There was something distinctly _different _about Lydia, something quite apart from her clothes-something slightly unsettling, in no way she could define. She had no way of knowing that Lydia was coming to the exact same conclusion about her. "Yeah-we're in this little house on Ninth Avenue. Still unpacking."

And there was that smile again, swift, elusive, but strangely warm for such a pale little girl, like a momentary ray of sunshine breaking through clouds. "The one with the purple trim, right? A…friend of mine made a model of the whole town," she explained, apparently belatedly realizing how stalker-tastic that sounded. "That's the only one that was up for sale."

Sarah's eyebrows went up. Yes, definitely different, but there was something curiously likeable about her, a peculiar sense of kinship Sarah couldn't have defined if she'd tried. "Yeah, that one. My stepmother's already digging up paint samples - she thinks it's hideous."

Lydia laughed outright. "Mine would do it on purpose," she said. "She thinks she's an artist, but like her agent said, she's mostly just a flake. You should see some of the sculptures she's made. They look like something out of a drug addict's nightmares."

Now it was Sarah who laughed. She'd heard a few stories about Delia Deetz from the selfsame nosy neighbors who told every bit of gossip they knew about the haunted Deetz house. "Mine is just so _boring_," she said. While she'd learned to get along with her stepmother much better since the Incident, they still had next to nothing in common; the woman might be steady and reliable and a good mother, but she didn't have a particle of imagination in her, and couldn't even begin to fathom her stepdaughter. At least she wasn't a pest about it, though, for which Sarah was mostly grateful. "She almost never does anything that deviates from her routine, and she always wants everything _quiet _- which is kind of hard, since I've got a three-year-old brother."

"Delia can't stand quiet. Which is unfortunate, since my dad's really jumpy." Her dark eyes danced a little. "You - you really should come see some of Delia's sculptures," she said, almost shy herself now. "I mean, if you ever get time." Sarah got the feeling inviting someone to her home was not a thing Lydia did on anything like a regular basis.

"I just have to get my groceries home, and then I was planning to get out of the house before my stepmother can load me down with chores. Your parents won't mind, though?" she asked, a little doubtfully.

Lydia rolled her eyes. "They might not even _notice_," she said. "I'll give this stuff to Delia and try to keep her from talking your ear off about all the weird crap she's made."

Sarah grinned a little. "Okay," she said, surprised to find herself actually enthusiastic about the idea. Until now she'd largely avoided any of the other girls in town, wanting to avoid that kind of social pressure until she absolutely couldn't anymore. Lydia, though, was someone she thought she wanted to get to know. "I think I can figure out how to get to your house, it's so visible from town."

"I'll keep an eye out for you," Lydia promised.

* * *

Lydia didn't know what the hell she thought she was doing, inviting this girl she'd just met up to the house. Even the quasi-friends she had at school had never been there, though it was true her house's reputation meant none of them really wanted to. Like Sarah with her, though, she got a distinct sense that there was something different about this girl, aside from the fact that she dressed almost as differently from other girls as Lydia herself did - just not as…noticeably.

In any event, once her purchases were paid for she tore off for home as fast as her bike could take her, depositing it in the garage and unloading Delia's groceries in the kitchen before hurrying up the stairs to the attic.

"Adam?" she said, knocking on the door. "Barbara? Can I come in?"

The door opened on its own, and she shut it carefully behind her. "Hi, guys," she said, still trying to catch her breath. "I was wondering if I could ask a favor - I've got a…maybe she'll be a friend…coming over, and I wanted to ask if I could show her the town. She's the one whose family bought the house with the purple trim."

The two ghosts raised their eyebrows at one another. Lydia had been a much happier and more cheerful girl since the Incident, but she had yet to really talk about any friends, let alone bring them home with her. "Sure," Adam said. "I don't mind if Barb doesn't."

"I don't, either," Barb said, shaking her head. "Thank God I dusted."

Lydia grinned, exposing a dimple very few people ever saw. "Thanks, you guys. I didn't want to bring her up into your space without asking first."

"We won't shift anything around, I promise," Adam said. "Best behavior, I swear."

"I won't, either," Lydia promised. "Especially not after all that work we put into the church."

She dashed back downstairs to wash her sweaty face and shove anything too questionably bizarre out of sight, particularly the _Handbook for the Recently Deceased_, which she was still working on translating into layman's terms. By the time she was finished and had made it back upstairs, Barbara was squinting down the long driveway.

"Someone's coming," she said. "Girl on a bike."

"That's her." It belatedly occurred to her that she didn't actually know the girl's _name_-the family who had moved in was named Williams, according to her father, but hadn't volunteered anyone's first names. Oh well, she hadn't given hers out, either.

Lydia met her guest down at the driveway, watching her take in the admittedly bizarre architecture. The house might lack purple trim, but it had that distinctive Otho touch about it.

"You know, I forgot to ask your name," she said, a little awkwardly, and the other girl flushed.

"It's Sarah," she said. "Sarah Williams. Your name's Lydia, right?"

"Yeah." Lydia was suddenly guarded, but it didn't last long. Whatever Sarah might have heard, it was neither weirding her out nor making her laugh. "Come on, I'll show you the model town first - Delia'll be cooking lunch soon, we can laugh at her stuff without her breathing down our necks."

She led Sarah inside, through the eclectic weirdness that was the first floor, up through the even more pronounced weirdness of the second, until they reached the dusty attic staircase. "The people who lived here before us built it," she explained.

"They died, didn't they?" Sarah asked, and sneezed. Lydia paused a moment.

"Yeah," she said. "I've kind of been taking care of it for them." Helping, at least, with photographs and stuff. It wasn't a total lie, even if the wording came off a little odd.

The attic was warm and sunny, and Sarah's reaction to the little town was all Lydia had hoped it might be. "It's so _detailed_," she said, leaning over to peer at the school. "That must have taken forever."

"The church took a month," Lydia said. "All the little boards are separate pieces."

Adam chose that moment to wander by with some paintbrushes, and to Lydia's amazement, Sarah jumped.

"Hi," she said, obviously startled, though not half so startled as Adam, who froze. "Are you Lydia's father?"

"You - you can _see _him?" Lydia almost stammered. "What the-"

Sarah was looking at her like she was insane. "Of course I can," she said. "What, shouldn't I?" she added, a little uneasy.

Adam swallowed. "Um," he said, "no, actually." He was obviously too pole-axed to offer further explanation.

"This is, uh, this is Adam Maitland," Lydia managed, only a little better off than he was. "He's - one of the original owners."

"I thought you said they died," Sarah said warily.

"We did." That was Barbara, as confused as her husband. "Most people can't see us, now."

Sarah had paled about five shades in as many seconds, but to Lydia's continued amazement she didn't laugh - or sneer. "So - what, are you ghosts?" Her tone was very, very odd - not quite wholly disbelieving, though it was clear she _wanted _to, and Lydia really wondered why. Why she could see them, why her reaction was so…unexpected.

"Well, technically," Adam said. They were certainly as unthreatening as people could be, ghosts or living, thank God. His astonishment was tempered with curiosity, now. "Lydia's the only one who's ever been able to see us without help, though."

Sarah stared at him, and Lydia stared at Sarah. What _was _this girl, who not only saw ghosts but (apparently) accepted them? Barbara and Adam certainly didn't look like ghosts, but Sarah didn't seem to be questioning it - too much. What had happened to her, to allow that? Lydia was self-admittedly 'strange and unusual', but Sarah certainly didn't look like the kind of disaffected person who would be pre-disposed to see spirits.

"I've - well, I can't say I've ever seen ghosts before," Sarah said, and now it was she who stammered. Something in the way she said that made Lydia more curious than ever; her tone implied she'd seen _other _bizarre things. "Um - nice to meet you?" she offered, swallowing.

"You, too." Barbara at least seemed somewhat in control of the situation, and she gave Sarah a smile. "We don't bite, I promise. We just share the house with the Deetzes."

"Ghosts," Sarah said, half to herself, and Lydia wondered what the hell she could possibly be thinking. "You're - actually ghosts." The implications of that finally seemed to hit her, and she sat down on one of the rickety wooden chairs. "I…." She trailed off, as though unsure what she'd been about to say. "There has to be a story behind this."

Adam and Barbara looked at one another, and at Lydia. "I think Lydia ought to tell you," Barbara said, and Lydia caught the implication - she could say as much or as little as she wanted, depending on how much she trusted this strange girl.

"…I can do that," Lydia said at last, "but…not here. Come on down to my room."

Sarah, still quite pale, followed her down the stairs, stumbling a little. Even out of earshot of the Maitlands, she didn't question the explanation, which still struck Lydia as deeply odd. Lydia herself didn't say anything until they'd reached her room, and she shut the door behind them.

"Here, this chair's comfortable," she said, removing a pile of sketchbooks from a black wicker basket-chair. Her room was cool and dim, the black curtains mostly drawn, turning the corners into shadowy holes. The bed was a canopy, draped with red and black, the walls covered in artwork and black-and-white photographs she'd taken herself, and three of them were lined with tall black bookcases stuffed with books and odd curios. It still smelled like sandalwood from the incense she'd burned the night before.

Sarah took it all in, her dark eyes still wide, and turned to Lydia when she sat on the bed. "What-seriously, what's that all about?" she asked, a little uneven.

Lydia tried not to squirm. "I'll tell you," she said, "but you have to promise you won't laugh at me, or tell anyone else. It's…pretty weird, and unbelievable."

"There's not much I wouldn't believe, anymore," Sarah muttered, and Lydia raised an eyebrow.

"There must be a story behind _that_," she said. "I'll tell if you will."

"I'm not sure you wouldn't think I wasn't crazy," Sarah said, curling up in the chair and suddenly looking very young.

Lydia's other eyebrow went up. "Ghost in the attic, remember? Try me." Sarah smiled a little, and bit her lip.

"True. Okay, but you go first."

So Lydia did, starting with their move into the house, and her meeting with the Maitlands. She dug up the Polaroids she'd taken of them in Delia's sheets, and actually did a little pantomime of the trick the Maitlands had pulled on Delia's dinner party, with some killing impersonations of Otho and Delia's former manager. She also dug out her copy of _The Handbook for the Recently Deceased_, feeling it was safe to show it.

"You'll have to ask Adam and Barbara about the waiting room, and Juno," she said, and wondered fleetingly if Juno wouldn't get pissed at her for telling Sarah any of this. Oh well, according to Adam and Barbara, Juno was always pissed about something.

She went on, trying not to growl too much over Otho's hand in things, but hesitated when she reached the part about _him._ Betelgeuse. Beetlejuice, as he'd spelled it out in charades. Even a year later she'd not spoken of him to anyone - not her parents, not the Maitlands, no one, and she wasn't sure how to do so now, though she didn't think it fair to leave anything out in her tale to Sarah. In a sense it was incredibly cathartic, being able to share the story with someone who wasn't immediately involved, someone who wouldn't laugh, who would _believe _it.

"And there was this other…guy, I guess, though he wasn't a ghost like Barbara and Adam, I think," she said at last, slowly, and didn't realize she'd curled up just like Sarah had. "He said he was a bio-exorcist, and when Otho summoned the Maitlands and did-whatever happened to them, I still don't know just what it was - I let him out because I didn't know how to help them, and neither did Otho." Stupid Otho; he'd looked hilarious in that leisure suit. "He said he wanted out of the afterlife, which meant he had to get married, and told me he'd only help if I'd agree to marry him. I didn't know what the hell else to do, so I said yes." She winced, expecting judgment at the least in Sarah's eyes, but to her surprise found none.

"He did what he promised, though I don't know _how_, but Barbara and Adam - helped me. A lot. See, the only way to summon him or to put him back is to say his name three times, and even though they only got two, Barbara got him eaten by a sandworm." And Lydia herself had almost passed out from sheer relief, for she'd had no idea how to extricate herself from that horrible situation - she hadn't had time to even really consider what Betelgeuse had been asking of her, she was so desperate for help, and it wasn't until afterward that the full impact of what might have happened to her hit her. Once it had she'd laughed, a little hysterically, and then she'd actually cried, which she normally never did - but unlike Adam and Barbara and her parents, she'd never really put it behind her. She'd got rid of that horrific wedding dress, but she still, unknown to anyone, had the veil in a box at the back of her closet - a small reminder that it had been real, that it had all actually happened, or so she told herself. The truth was that she didn't know why she kept it, only that she felt some obscure need to. It was intuition knocking, and she rarely ignored her intuition.

Now Sarah did laugh, though it wasn't a mocking one, or a laugh of incredulity. "A _sandworm?_" she said. "That…um. Sounds like something that might have been…. Um." Now she was the one who looked extremely uncomfortable, resting her chin on her knees. "I guess it's my turn, huh?" Lydia, oddly drained, nodded.

Sarah was silent a long, long moment, clearly trying to gather the right words, or _any _words, and Lydia had a feeling that whatever Sarah's tale was, it had to be about equally as bizarre as her own. Perhaps, she thought, that was where the _difference _she'd felt in Sarah came from; the subtle, intangible mark of someone who has seen things no ordinary mortal might even dream of - and not necessarily in a good way.

"Okay, you can't laugh at me, either," she said slowly. "At least ghosts kind of make sense…what happened to me is more like - like you said your stepmother's sculptures are. A drug addict's nightmare."

"I won't," Lydia said, now wildly curious. "I promise."

* * *

Sarah nodded, half to reassure herself as much as Lydia before she went on. She told her about baby Toby, about her own obsession with _The Labyrinth, _her fourteen-year-old discontent with her father and stepmother. She faltered when she reached the bit about wishing Toby away, mostly because it sounded ridiculous even to herself, and she'd _lived _it.

_Sandworms_, she reminded herself, and went on. She told of Hoggle, and the biting fairies, of Ludo and Sir Didymus and all the people she'd met in the Labyrinth, of the Firies who tried to pull her head off. Like Lydia, it was a story she'd never told a single soul, one that only found outlet in the few creative writing courses she'd taken in English. And like Lydia, she hesitated when she mentioned the Goblin King. Jareth, though she'd never once called him by name. There was - so much in there she halfway wanted to forget, yet wouldn't let herself, and before she realized what she was doing she was pouring all _that _out to this girl she'd only just met, this strange pale girl with such deep, deep black eyes who actually _believed _her.

"I know he was just trying to distract me into losing," she said, of the strange dream-ball after she'd eaten the peach, "and I actually fell for it, at first. I didn't want to, but at the same time…I sort of did." And _that _was a thing she'd hardly dared admit even to herself. "He was tricky and cruel and I hated him, but he was also…I don't know, I guess 'fascinating' is the word I want. And I feel weirdly - _grateful _to him, because even though his Labyrinth almost got me killed more than once, I think I…well, I learned a lot from it. Sometimes I have nightmares about it, but sometimes I have good dreams, too, and I don't think I'd take it back if I had the chance. I hated my brother until I had to fight to get him back."

_And she'd felt so _strange _when she danced with him, in a way she hadn't understood until she was older. It had all been a trick and she knew it, but that hadn't changed its effect on her then, nor on her memory of it now. Ruse or no, she'd felt appreciated, felt _wanted _in some way more innocent than carnal - though that physical awareness had been there, too, as much as it could have been at fourteen. She hadn't understood him then at all, and even now she understood him little better, but she knew more about _herself_, and that gave her better comprehension of the world she'd navigated those terrible, wonderful, terrifying thirteen hours. She was immeasurably grateful she'd gotten away with it, but she couldn't help wondering what had happened after she'd left, what the Labyrinth was like now - what _he _was like now, what he'd done and what he was doing. And she hated that she wondered, hated that she cared enough to be curious, but that made no difference._

And Lydia, in some bizarre way, seemed to understand that without being told. From the sound of her story there had been more nightmare than dream, and whatever fascination her tale had held had been more of the trainwreck variety, but she was willing to believe. As she'd said, _Ghosts in the attic._

"I've called them a few times since then, too," she said, speaking of Hoggle and the others. "Not often, but…sometimes life gets too hard, and I don't know how ready I am to be an _adult _in some ways. I never did quit daydreaming, and sometimes the thought of leaving home and going to college scares me. Most of the time I can't wait to get out of the house, but sometimes…the world's huge, and I still don't know what I want from it, or it from me." It was in the times that she worried herself half-sick that she called them, that she spent a while as something like a little girl again, the girl who'd beaten the Labyrinth. She'd never yet let herself wish she was _back _there, because that was a level of disconnect she simply wouldn't allow, but difficult and dangerous though it had been, it had also been straightforward in a way her 'real' life wasn't.

"It's-nice to have people like that, isn't it?" Lydia said, after a pause. "They're there for you, they don't _judge _you or make you feel like a freak." There was a little bitterness in that last word, and Sarah thought fleetingly of the school. Someone like Lydia wouldn't have stood out too badly at her old high school, but this town was so small that she likely had a hard time of it. It made Sarah herself look forward to it less than ever, but at least there was Lydia. She'd have one ally, even if she never gained others.

"It is," she agreed, after another little pause. "I love my parents, but they just don't understand - I know every teenager ever has said that, but they _really _don't because they can't - they weren't there. And Toby's too young to remember anything, so it's just my friends and I. And sometimes I need them to remind myself I'm not crazy."

Lydia laughed a little. "Same here, actually, only my parents _were _there. They were weird even before that, though, and pretty - uninvolved, I'd have to call it. But the Maitlands pick up where my parents fail."

She faltered, and Sarah looked at her curiously. Something was on the girl's mind, something she seemed to wonder whether or not she ought to share, but it only took a few moments for her to reach a decision. She rolled off the other side of her bed and dug through the closet - she definitely had a mess going in there - and eventually came up with a little cardboard box.

"I shouldn't need this, what with the Maitlands upstairs," she said, ripping at the tape. "I mean, they're evidence I'm not insane, but I had to hang onto this anyway." Off came the lid, and she held something out to Sarah - a veil of gauzy lace, brilliant red. "I don't know why I've hung onto it - nobody else knows I did, not even Adam and Barbara." She sounded almost defensive, but there was no judgment in Sarah when she passed the slightly rough material through her fingers.

"You don't always have to know _why _you do something," she said. The lace smelled strange to her, like damp earth and dead leaves and smoke - it wasn't exactly an unpleasant smell, but it was definitely strange. "Who knows what the rest of your family might have hung on to, in real life or just in their heads? I sometimes wonder if the Labyrinth won't affect Toby in some way, even if he can't remember it. If he maybe took something out of it with him."

A thought struck her, as she stared at the material, and she looked up at Lydia. "Have you ever called him again?" she asked quietly.

The girl blinked, and visibly twitched. "_What_?" she said. "Oh hell no. Juno-the Maitlands' caseworker - said he's too dangerous to let loose in the living world. From what I can figure out, he's too powerful for his own good, and he told me himself he doesn't have any rules. I don't even want to think about what kind of damage he could do, if he got out here again. Besides," she added, hitting what Sarah thought might be the crux of the matter, "he's probably really pissed off at me."

"Why?" Sarah asked. "You weren't the one who got him eaten by a sandworm."

Lydia was silent, considering that, and Sarah had a feeling it hadn't occurred to her before. "Still," she said, "I was lucky to get away from him the first time. Juno's never said exactly what he could do if he were free, but I'd rather not find out."

_I think part of you would_, Sarah thought. Not that she could blame Lydia - she understood that kind of curiosity a little too well. She'd wondered more than once what kind of havoc Jareth could wreak in the outside world - she'd seen very little of his powers in the Labyrinth, but one didn't get to be king of anything without superior abilities. She still didn't even know what he actually _was_, since he was manifestly not a goblin.

Lydia laughed a little. "Besides, B isn't like what your goblin king sounds like," she said. "He's creepy and perverted and he's growing _moss _all over his face - he doesn't look like the Maitlands, he really does look dead."

She sounded as if she thought she meant it, but Sarah wondered. She knew it was perfectly possible to be repulsed by something but also fascinated by it. And one only had to look at Lydia to believe she'd be quite fascinated by all sorts of aspects of the afterlife - even the nasty ones, as this B fellow sounded like. Hell, _she _was intrigued by the idea, and she had no great interest in the macabre. Lydia definitely had a way with words, and her descriptions of the man/ghost/whatever he was really were interesting, if disgusting. And who wouldn't want to do the things he did? Who wouldn't wonder what else he could do?

"Not that it hasn't been tempting, sometimes," Lydia said, as though reading her mind. "I ought to warn you about Claire Brewster, the school's resident Rich Bitch. There have been a few times I would've loved to be able to set him on her. She'll probably give you trouble just because she can."

She hopped off the bed and dug through a drawer, pulling out a thick portfolio of photographs. "I took these at school last year," she said, sifting through the photos. "This one's Claire." She passed Sarah one of the pictures, a thick, glossy six-by-ten of a girl about their own age, her face locked in a rather unflattering sneer. Fake 'N Bake tan, blonde hair - almost certainly artificial - tortured into a massive perm, which was in turn gathered to one side of her head and secured with a pink scrunchie. Too much lipstick, too much mascara, all of it destroying what would have been prettiness if she'd just left the cosmetics and hair chemicals alone.

"She looks like it," she said, handing the photograph back. "We had a few like her back home."

"I think they pop up everywhere," Lydia said, putting the portfolio away. "Like mushrooms."

Sarah burst out laughing, breaking the slightly uneasy mood created by two such massive confessions. "You should draw that," she said. "Are all those yours?" She nodded at the various drawings along the walls - some graphite, some colored pencil, a few small watercolors.

"Yeah. I don't do too much - my mom was a lot better than me - but I like to, sometimes, especially if it's the wrong weather for photography."

Sarah stood, peering at them all - they were beautifully intricate, far more so than anything her amateur talents could produce; Lydia might well be able to make a living with them. Unsurprisingly, a lot of them matched the theme of her room - a graphite one of a graveyard in moonlight practically seemed alive, mist crawling and swirling between the stones.

"I have a ton of them," Lydia said. "I only hang up the ones I really like."

"Do you have any sketchbooks?" Sarah asked. "And can I see them?" She was vastly intrigued by people with actual artistic talent, not the producers of the strange…creations…she'd so briefly seen downstairs.

"Sure." Another rummage through another drawer produced about five sketchbooks, each full. Sarah flipped through them, wondering a little at the sheer variety of subjects. She only paused when she came across a particularly startling one - it was a colored pencil rendering of a man, a man with the blue-white skin of a corpse, wild green-blonde hair standing out like a Brillo pad gone nova. Strange greenish patches marred his neck and the edges of his hairline, and his eyes were sunk in deep purple shadows - startlingly green eyes, flecked with yellow, a little too bright and almost rabid. Wildly arched eyebrows, and the grin of a person who is completely and unrepentantly insane. It was even more compelling than the rest of the drawings, truly unsettling in a way even the darkest and most disturbing of the rest weren't.

Lydia flinched at the sight of that one. "I don't know why I drew that," she said, again almost defensively. "It was just…in my head, and I had to put it on paper."

"Is that the B man?" Sarah asked, unable to look away. She could see what lingering fascination he might hold in Lydia's mind - whatever else you might say of him, his was not a face you could ever, ever forget. The image almost seemed suffused with a kind of manic energy, a feral, dangerous sort of mischief that might be hilarious or might kill everyone within a five-mile radius.

Lydia bit her lip. "Yeah," she said. "Creepy, isn't he? He's even worse in person. He's _scary_, and I'm not scared of much."

That, Sarah would easily believe. The image seemed to radiate a kind of power somewhat akin to Jareth's; she wondered if the two were anything close to the same sort of creature. All at once she couldn't bear to look anymore, and shut the book before she could get too creeped out.

"It's a full moon tonight," Lydia observed. "Can you get out after dark? There's a spot I always take pictures at - it's creepy, but it's beautiful. There's an owl that nests near it."

Sarah considered that - she wasn't much of an 'after-dark' person, but this place was so new to her she wanted to explore it, even at night. "Why the hell not?" she said. A question she would later regret very, very much.

* * *

The picture in Lydia's sketchbook is based off this amazing one on DeviantArt: http :/ tavington . deviantart .com / art / Beetlejuice-69405804 (You'll have to delete the spaces, as FFN doesn't allow links, but it's an awesome drawing).

Anyway, like it? Hate it? Let me know. Next chapter will include The B Man himself, as well as some rather dangerous idiocy on the part of Claire Brewster. Sarah is also _not _going to like her English teacher's choice of reading material. XD


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Aaaand we have The B Man. This one is rated a very light M for what basically amounts to sleep molestation, so consider yourselves warned. XD

* * *

That evening, after dinner while she waited for night to fall, Lydia sat on her bed and regarded the drawing.

She'd almost forgotten about it, until Sarah found it. As she'd said, she'd _had _to draw it-the image refused to get out of her mind until she'd committed it to paper. It was one of the best things she'd ever drawn, yet until Sarah she'd never shown it to anyone.

Sarah wasn't the only one it unnerved, either. Part of why Lydia herself almost never looked at it was because it seemed a little too _alive_, a little too _him._ None of the other portraits she'd done held that quality. The green-gold-yellow eyes seemed to be actively looking at her, and she abruptly shut the sketchbook, shivering. She hated this feeling - she felt _watched_, no matter what anyone might say about the limits of the dead. Betelgeuse had said himself that he didn't have rules, and she somehow doubted he'd have any difficulty getting around those of others. That was why she tried not to think about him too much, in case her thoughts might serve as some kind of beacon, some siren call for him to follow through the Nietherworld. Not that it worked - he seemed to worm his way into her thoughts whenever her mind wandered, but she _tried_. She didn't want to think about him, didn't want to wonder, but she _did_, and it pissed her off.

"Betelgeuse," she murmured, and even whispering his name once gave her a thrill that was half-anticipation, half-panic. If thinking about him might attract attention, who knew what saying his name, even once, even in a whisper, might do? Sarah and her Goblin King had been a bad and dangerous influence, especially since Betelgeuse was _nothing _like Sarah's description of Jareth - well, except for the arrogance.

Her brain taunted her, trying to get her to say his name again, but she ignored it and instead focused on packing up her photography supplies. Dark was fast approaching, and then she'd have real, tangible distractions. She wouldn't be so tempted to say his name again.

* * *

Far away, in what passed for his home in the Neitherworld, something tingled right in the middle of Betelgeuse's brain. It made him sit up straight, breaking his lethargy, suddenly wholly alert.

Someone had spoken his name.

He shut his eyes and leaned back, very carefully, on his ancient couch. Only a handful of people in the outside world knew his name, and he could think of only one person likely to actually _use _it.

Lydia. Little Lydia, his erstwhile bride.

He knew she'd thought about him, on and off-even while trapped in the waiting room he'd felt the, aha, ghostly brush of her thoughts when they passed over him. Only once had they been anything more than fleeting-once he'd occupied much of her mind for about a week, and unfortunately he'd been stuck in the waiting room and so had no idea why.

She'd been in his thoughts, too, far more than he liked. He'd thought her a pretty little thing as soon as he saw her - not his usual type, but all the more interesting for it. His marriage idea hadn't been just a means to get Out for good-he wanted to get to know that girl, in more ways than one, and he _would _have, if not for that damned Maitland woman and - he shuddered - her sandworm.

There wasn't much Betelgeuse could be forgiven for, but in a sense he could be forgiven for disregarding Lydia's youth. When he'd been alive most girls were married by fourteen, and he hadn't exactly had a lot of prolonged contact with breathers since then. Not that he would have cared if he _had _known, but still. He hadn't, and he still didn't in spite of all Juno's shouting. It just wasn't relevant; marriage interruptus or no, she was _his_, and he'd find some way to make her realize it.

Just as soon as he got out of here.

_She _wouldn't say his name - not three times, not unless she were tricked into it or unimaginably desperate. It wouldn't work if he possessed her and made her say it, either - it had to be of her own will, or what she _thought _of as her own will. He knew of one way almost _guaranteed _to, but she'd resent the hell out of it later and just make his life much more difficult. No matter how tempting it - and she - might be.

He shut his eyes and sought out a mirror in the Otherworld - any mirror would do, and when he found one he followed the trail left by his name from her lips, until he found the odd house in Winter River, and the mirror in her bedroom.

She hadn't changed much, not outwardly. Her hair was a little longer, but just as black, her face a little sharper. She hadn't grown so far as he could tell - she was still a pixie of a girl, her head probably only reaching his chin, and though he'd been tall for his time he couldn't be reckoned so by modern standards. Her figure was a mystery thanks to the coat she wore, but her eyes-his memory of those huge black eyes hadn't changed, so wide and full of insatiable curiosity. Tempting - downright edible - and obviously wholly unaware of her appeal. Not that that was a bad thing - he might be stuck here, but he didn't want anyone else going near her before he got out. She was _his_, dammit, his and only his, and Betelgeuse was not a sharing sort of poltergeist.

There were less tangible changes, though. She seemed…happier, no longer the suicidally depressed teenager he'd first met. Everything she owned was still black, but now it just seemed to be color preference rather than a reflection of her mood. Much as he loathed the Maitlands, they'd clearly done her some good in the last year. He didn't know that he altogether liked that, since a happy Lydia was much less likely to call him. It might mean she was far less easy to manipulate, too.

Still, she was even prettier when she smiled. It lit up her whole face, and made her seem even more alive, and in turn it made him watch her with something close to greed.

Lydia.

_Lydia._

She paused, going very, very still, and he wondered if she'd almost-heard him. Her eyes traveled the room, wary, and that made _him _smile. She wasn't stupid, his Lydia, which was unfortunately why he'd have a hell of a time getting her to say his name three times. And whenever he _did _manage it, he'd somehow have to find a way to keep her from saying it again and sending him right back. Not an easy problem, but then things that _were _too easy were deeply boring. If it meant he could truly get _out_, it would be worth the effort. Patience was an alien concept, but for now he'd better get used to it.

* * *

Climbing down from her window wasn't easy when she was encumbered by all her photography equipment, but Lydia had a fair amount of practice. August though it was, it got damn chilly after dark, and she shivered, drawing her coat tighter about her. The moon was already riding high in the sky, silvering the few clouds-popcorn clouds, she thought they were called, that signaled a coming storm.

She'd told Sarah how to get to the graveyard, so she didn't bother going through town to pick her up. She was used to navigating the trees beyond her yard, and the moonlight made it almost as bright as day. It was eerie, beautiful, and perfect for pictures.

Sarah was already there, sitting on the low stone fence that surrounded the graveyard. She too was well wrapped up in a coat, a long brown camel-hair trench coat almost the same color as her hair. She turned when she heard Lydia approach, her expression a little uneasy-she'd probably never been anywhere near a graveyard after dark, Lydia thought. There wasn't anything to be scared of here, though - after all, if there were any ghosts, Lydia would certainly have seen them by now. At first she'd found that odd, until Barbara pointed out that not many people actually _died _in graveyards, unless it was of fright.

Lydia parked her bike, a little out of breath, and gave Sarah a smile. "Pretty, isn't it?" she said, unshouldering her pack.

"It is," Sarah said, sounding half unwilling to admit it. "Creepy, but pretty." She turned to look out over the tombstones, and Lydia sized her up with an artist's eye.

"Hold still," she said, digging out her camera. Sarah did, a little self-consciously, and Lydia snapped several pictures of her profile. Ordinarily she didn't take many portraits, but this one just seemed to _work_.

"At least one of those ought to turn out really well," she said. Ethereal, a little unreal-if it came out like she thought it would, she might even be able to enter one in the school photo contest. "I hope I can find a few spiders," she added, glancing around. "The webs always show up a lot in moonlight."

Sarah shuddered a little, and hopped off the fence to wander a little hesitantly through the headstones. There were no mirrors here, obviously, but the moon was so bright and several of the granite stones so polished that they might as well have been, and when she passed them a shiver that had nothing to do with cold passed through her. She put it down to nerves, or tried to, but with another shiver made her way back to Lydia. The girl didn't seem half so uneasy as she was, but then Lydia was probably used to this.

Behind his impromptu mirror, Betelgeuse smiled. So Lydia had found a friend, had she? An unlikely-looking friend, but apparently a friend nonetheless. There had to be some way he could use that.

"Sarah, come look at this." Lydia's voice, somewhere off to his left, and he smiled again, delighted and a little vicious. _Sarah_. It would have been much more helpful if he had her last name as well, but he could probably find it out easily enough. Names had power; all names, not just his. Lydia might be healthily wary of him, but this Sarah wouldn't be, even if Lydia had happened to say anything about him, which he highly doubted.

He followed her through every reflective surface he could find, until she reached Lydia, who was crouched on the ground examining something beneath a tree.

_Sarah._

It was a test, an experiment from which he expected no results, since the girl wasn't Lydia, but to his delighted surprise she turned her head, her expression uneasy.

_Sarah._

Louder this time, more insistent, a voice in the head rather than the ear. This time she actually jumped, and Lydia turned to her, confused and a little uneasy herself.

"What?" she asked, taking in the other girl's suddenly ashen face, rendered even paler by the moonlight.

"I…think we should go," Sarah said unevenly. "Really. Like, right now."

Lydia stood, still looking at her with a very adult sort of appraisal. "Why?"

_SARAH._

This time she flinched, and whirled around. "Something's trying to talk to me. I think."

_Say my name, Sarah. Betelgeuse-say it._

"Betel-" she started, only to have Lydia clap a hand over her mouth.

"Don't," she said, now paper-white herself. "Whatever you do, _don't say it._ Remember, it only takes three times."

_That _startled him. So Lydia had been talking about him, had she? Again came that almost feral smile-no wonder she'd said his name once herself.

"Why the hell-" Sarah started, when Lydia removed her hand.

"You can see the Maitlands," she said. "If you can see them, I'm not surprised you can hear him. B, what do you want?"

B? _B_? Not much of a nickname, that.

_Say my name, Lydia. Sarah. One of you._

Lydia snorted. "Not likely," she said. "Sarah knows about you, B. Find some other sucker."

_You don't want me to do that, Lydia. SAY IT._

"Did you not hear me just now? What, do I really look that stupid? Leave it alone, B. It's not happening."

"Has he ever-done that before?" Sarah asked, still looking around.

Lydia frowned. "No," she said. "He's not out, though, or he wouldn't be asking. He probably _couldn't _until now, for whatever reason. Just ignore him-he can't actually hurt you, not while he's stuck in the Neitherworld." She hoped not, anyway, though she wasn't about to say something so discouraging.

_I'll make you say it, Lydia. _That was for her ears only, this time. _One way or another. I'll make you _want _to._

She swallowed, looking both perturbed and somewhat revolted. A glance at Sarah told her the other girl hadn't heard that one, fortunately. This was between the two of them-husband and wife, if not strictly legally. Predator and prey, though his prey wasn't quite reacting the way he'd hoped.

"Bite me, B," she muttered, packing up her things. He laughed.

_If that's the way you like it. Say it now or I'll make you scream it in your sleep. _He paused. _I might anyway._

"You're disgusting," she muttered, more quietly still. "You leave Sarah alone, B, or you might have one pissed-off goblin king after you." That last was loud enough for Sarah to hear, and she turned to Lydia, more startled than ever.

"That's…probably true, actually," she said thoughtfully.

Oh, he wanted the story behind _that _one. No goblins in the Neitherworld. Vampires, a few werewolves even, but no goblins. Sarah wasn't his concern right now, though, all question of interfering goblin monarchs aside. He'd get Lydia, and _then _he'd get that story.

"School starts in two days," Lydia said to Sarah, now pointedly ignoring him. "I'll see you there, okay? And…I'm sorry about B, but I don't think he'll bother you much, if at all. You're not the one he's angry at."

Sarah, still shaken, nodded. "Yeah, I'll see you there. You, um, hash it out with this guy, if you can." She bit her lip and grabbed her bike, and tore off away from the graveyard as though all of hell were at her heels.

Lydia watched her go. "Thanks a lot, B. I'm trying to make friends here, you bastard. You know, what normal people do? It's not my fault you got eaten by a sandworm, so leave me alone." She swung her pack back over her shoulder, her lovely evening ruined. At least she might have a few nice pictures to show for it, or so she hoped, as she kicked up her kickstand and rode off herself.

_That's not the point, Lyds. Sandworm or no sandworm, you're _mine_, and I don't let go of my things._

The blatant possessiveness even in his mental tone made her shiver. "I am not," she said, dodging a tree root. "We're not actually married, remember? I'm not letting you out, and you can't make me. Possession has to be against the rules for that kind of thing." She wouldn't let herself think about what _else _he'd said, the blatant implication of how he might force it out of her anyway. Could he even do that, or was he just bluffing? She didn't think she wanted to find out, really; tonight might be a good night to break into Delia's Valium. If she slept deep enough she'd have no room for dreams.

_Oh yes I can, little girl. You don't know what I can do to you, inside your head. _

"Go _away_," she snapped, and tried not to think even when she'd put her bike away and climbed back up to her bedroom window. She had no idea how he was talking to her or if he could see her, but just to be safe she changed into her pyjamas in stages, careful to keep as much skin covered as she could, and snuck into the main bathroom to steal a Valium. She didn't often do it, so Delia never noticed, but she wasn't about to try and go without it tonight. She washed it down with a glass of milk and brushed her teeth, regarding her mirror thoughtfully. Some obscure instinct led her to dig a spare sheet out of the linen closet and tack it over the mirror with thumbtacks, draping it carefully so none of the silvered glass could be seen. She did the same thing to the mirror over her bureau, not knowing why the reflections unnerved her, only that they did.

What little she could do accomplished, she crawled into bed and snuggled down beneath the pile of covers, unconsciously curled up in a protective fetal position. She'd done everything she could, she thought, as the Valium suffused her with sleepy lethargy; now all she could do was wait and see what happened.

* * *

Damn her. _Damn _her. How had she known about the mirrors? That was going to make his life much, much more difficult. What he planned was still possible, but it would take much more effort and he probably couldn't pull it off to his satisfaction tonight. He'd need more time to figure out away around this little complication.

Fortunately, even without the mirrors there were a few reflective surfaces in her room - the glass over her photographs, for one, and though using them was much more difficult than a true mirror, he finally managed something close to what he wanted. Physically he was still trapped in the Neitherworld, but there were many things his mind could do that were quite outside all the Rules. All the living were closer to the Neitherworld when they slept, and he wasn't the only one who'd occasionally hopped into a breather's dreams and wreaked havoc. Technically you weren't supposed to, but if you followed every stupid rule in the book you wouldn't be able to do _anything_.

He waited until she was well and truly out before he reached for the slender thread of her dreaming mind. The fact that she'd said his name, even if only once, made it much easier for him to slip into her head now, following the confused, wandering paths of her dreams until he found an opening.

_In the end the Valium did Lydia a disservice, because while it rendered her dreams muzzy and undefined, it also meant she couldn't wake up._

_It started with a touch, cold but not quite icy, that made her frown in her sleep and turn over, snuggling deeper into her blankets. The touch didn't stop, however; instead it tickled along her sides, tracing up and down her arms, over the long line of her throat. She shifted again, and shivered, and Betelgeuse smiled in the dark of her mind. This warranted some exploration, some testing, if you would, to see what made her squirm and what didn't._

_Her waking body might be tangled up in all her blankets, but in her head it was easy enough to get rid of them, long fingers stealing beneath the hem of her nightshirt - so prosaic compared to her ordinary wardrobe, a disappointingly plain black T-shirt - and running up along her sides. She was so _warm _even in sleep, her skin pale but very much alive, and when he'd made that irritating T-shirt vanish he ran his hand down the smooth plane of her sternum, all the way over her stomach until he reached the hem of her pyjama pants. She sighed, still half uncomfortable, but when he bent his head to her neck the little sound she made was anything but unhappy. He tried to be careful, he _did_, but when he essayed a soft bite at the tender skin just beneath her jawline, her sharp intake of breath told him he didn't need to take quite so much care._

_He managed to make her moan, at least, reacting to his touch even through her deeply drugged sleep, even if she was too far out of it to actually reciprocate. Deft fingers teased, explored, making her sweat in spite of their chill, and finally she did squirm, her primal subconscious craving more in spite of her near-coma. Touch by touch he coaxed little wordless sounds from her, but nothing coherent, nothing he could _use_, though for now he was so fascinated watching her he didn't particularly grudge that. Her body might not be at his mercy, but her _mind _was, and oh was he enjoying that, enjoying seeing what he could do to her, what he could make her feel without so much as laying a finger on her in waking reality._

"_Say my name, Lydia," he murmured against her ear, cold breath he did not need on her skin. She somehow managed to shake her head even as other incoherent half-words left her throat, and he wondered that she could be so far under the combined spell of his influence and her drugs yet still manage such a feat. But she was no more weak than she was stupid; this would, he realized, not be the work of a night, or even a few nights. That thought didn't bother him, though, not when even watching her was so very much fun._

_He toyed briefly with the idea of leaving her at this torturous height, as punishment for her refusal, but eventually decided against it, and her reaction was more than worth it. Nobody had ever done this to her, for her, in sleep or in waking life, and if he couldn't make her let him out yet he _could _take a rather selfish joy in knowing he was first, even if it was still only in her head._

_When she finally came back down to Earth he kissed her forehead, her temple, and then buried his face in her sweat-damp hair._

"_You'll say it," he said, "eventually. I told you I could make you, and I will." And with that he left her to her more ordinary dreams, feeling obscurely satisfied in spite of the failure of his objective. Practice made perfect, and this was something he'd dearly love to practice._

_

* * *

_

Lydia woke next morning with a jerk.

She didn't know quite what she'd dreamt, she'd been so out of it, but if the sensations coursing through her body were any indication, it had been about what she suspected. At least she was still dressed, she thought, as she swallowed with a dry throat. And at least she must not have actually done what he wanted, because she was quite sure if she _had _let him out, he would have woken her up before now to gloat. Gloat, and do who knew what else, the pervert.

She scrambled out of her bed and got herself a glass of water, staring at the pale blue sheet tacked over her mirror. Was she never going to be able to use one again? She wasn't sure she even wanted to do her makeup in front of one, because there was no way for her to know whether or not _he _was watching her. And that was just _creepy._

In the end she showered and brushed her hair without one, and wondered if she ought to try to dump this whole problem on Juno. That would require taking it to the Maitlands, though, which was something she really didn't want to do just yet. They'd want explanations she just wasn't ready to give, at least not until she'd worked out some kind of…less embarrassing explanation. Telling her spectral godparents she'd been molested in her sleep by a perverted poltergeist was not high on her list of things she wanted to do…well, ever.

She dried her hair and cadged some toast from Barbara before heading out into the cool morning, needing to get away from her bedroom for a while so she could try to collect her rather disoriented thoughts. The school supply lists and teacher assignments would be posted today, and it was a pleasant enough ride down into town.

She just hoped Sarah hadn't been completely scared off by Betel-B, she wasn't even going to _think _his name, the bastard. If she'd dealt with that Jareth guy, hopefully she wouldn't be put off by an obnoxious, perverted poltergeist who still - so far - couldn't do anything to any of them, not really. Nothing in the real world, anyway.

Miss Shannon's was a long, two-story white building, as old-fashioned as much of the rest of the town. Autumn leaves already carpeted the lawn and parking lot, and a sheaf of notes as yellow as the leaves was tacked prominently on the black doors. A few girls were clustered around it - thankfully not including Claire - but it was Sarah she zeroed in on, a rather obviously distressed Sarah. Lydia winced, and went over when the girl beckoned.

Before she could say anything, Sarah pressed one of the papers into her hands. "Look at the curriculum in English Lit," she said, and when Lydia did she understood Sarah's distress quite well.

"_The Labyrinth_?" she said, her eyebrows rising. "It doesn't sound like the kind of thing Mrs. Scarpello would pick."

"It's not the kind of thing any English teacher would pick," Sarah muttered, "and it makes me wonder if someone _else _had a hand in it."

Lydia, remembering her dreams, winced again. "The actual line isn't in there, though, is it?" she asked. "The wishing one?"

"No, thank God, but it still makes me nervous. There were a lot of goblins there - who knows how many were…were _native_, and how many had been wished away? Hoggle said nobody had ever beaten it, which means other people have to have tried."

"Maybe someone will wish Claire away," Lydia said, though even she didn't find it very funny. "Do you think the goblin king has that kind of influence here, though?"

"I don't know _what _to think," Sarah said, staring at the yellow sheet. "I have a hard time believing it's coincidence, though, because the book _is _so unlike anything else you'd read in school. Last time I'd checked it was out of print."

That struck Lydia as a bit ominous. She knew Mrs. Scarpello, and the woman would never think to deviate from standard curriculum unless someone told her to, and the book was so obscure…then again, maybe B was making her paranoid. God knew she had reason to be. "There's not much we can do about it, though," she said at last. "Not without destroying the supply of books."

That made Sarah look terribly thoughtful. "Do you know where they keep them?"

"No, unfortunately. I don't know how we could do it without setting the school on fire-which I will _not _do," she added, seeing the gleam in Sarah's eyes. It occurred to her that, fresh-faced and innocent though the girl might seem, Sarah was probably not a wise person to cross. If she'd bested a goblin king, who knew what she might do?

Not that, apparently. "Damn," she muttered. "I just…really, _really _don't like this. Jareth's probably as mad at me as B is at you, and I don't even want to know what he'd do if he got loose in this world."

"Too bad we can't put them both in a cage-match," Lydia said, trying to smile. "Thunderdome-style."

That managed to make Sarah laugh a little-a nervous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. "I don't think he can do much here," she said, clearly trying to convince herself. "Otherwise he would have by now. If anyone had summoned him since then, he'd have come after me for sure."

"Why can't we meet _normal _guys?" Lydia griped. "Other girls get jocks or nerds or artsy-types, but we get a poltergeist and a goblin king."

That made Sarah really laugh, which caught the attention of Lydia's other two friends, Bertha and Prudence. The pair approached them, both clutching their lists of classes and curriculum, clearly a little daunted by this pretty stranger. Prudence was a tiny girl, even shorter than Lydia, with a shock of carroty hair and thick, Coke-bottle glasses, while Bertha was a tall, knock-kneed brunette with unfortunately large front teeth. Together with Lydia they'd banded into a little group of misfits, united against Claire and her ilk, but Sarah did not look as though she belonged among them. It was a good thing she had her goblin king, Lydia thought, or B would surely transfer his blighted, perverted plans to her, and Lydia wouldn't wish _that _on anyone. Well, maybe Claire. It had occurred to Lydia before now that not only was Claire more what she was sure B's physical type was, she matched him in obnoxiousness.

"Hey, guys," she said. "This is Sarah - Sarah, meet Bertha and Prudence."

"Hi," Bertha said, a little shyly. Sarah's smile put her at her ease, though.

"Nice to meet you," she said, offering a hand, which Bertha took a little hesitantly. Claire wouldn't find a lot to twit Sarah about, at least, though she'd probably be jealous.

_Not my type, Babes. She's not you, and she's not _mine_. I want what's owed me, even rather than lovely Sarah._

Lydia nearly swallowed her tongue. Surely he wasn't reading her mind, was he? And where the hell could he _possibly _be finding a mirror out here?

_Your face is as easy to read as a book, Lyds. You can't keep secrets from me._

_Shut up,_ she thought savagely, not caring if he couldn't hear her. She could feel her face flaming from the mere thought of him, too many fuzzy memories of that damn dream hitting her. More Valium tonight, definitely.

Belatedly she re-tuned into the conversation, hiding her flaming face behind her paper to ward off any further observations from B. He didn't need to know how much she'd _liked _that dream, even though she knew it for what it was. Damn, she needed a boyfriend - and a place without reflections. Anything that might cast a reflection in her room was going _away _tonight, before she went to sleep, because if he did manage to coax his name out of her three times through sleep-molestation she might well die of shame. No matter how goddamn good it felt at the time. Nothing she'd ever accomplished through, uh, solo exploration had come even close to that, and no way would she let herself get addicted to it. That was probably exactly what he wanted, that kind of power over her. Screw that - her life was her own, her _self _was her own, and no talented ghost was going to take that from her, thank you very much.

She was effectively distracted from her musings by Claire Brewster, who flounced through the parking lot as though she owned the place. Her outfit today was particularly unfortunate, from Lydia's point of view-black miniskirt, pink, off the shoulder top-what was _with _her and pink, anyway?-and giant gold hoop earrings. Too much make-up, as usual, and her perm had somehow been coaxed into new heights of bouffant-ery.

"She looks like hooker Barbie," Sarah whispered, and Lydia laughed before she could help herself. Claire shot her a glare, which turned appraising when she saw Sarah, but apparently they were all beneath her notice.

"Let's…go see what the boys are doing," Bertha said, clearly relieved to have escaped so easily. The boys' school was one lot over, and Lydia rolled her eyes. Bertha had developed a shy, socially inept interest in boys that so far Lydia had not shared, but now, thanks to B, she was resolved to develop one just to spite him. Surely there had to be _someone _worth pursuing.

"Why not?" she said firmly, and felt his laughter in her head-terrible, somewhat jealous laughter.

_Don't even think about it, little girl. None of them could do for you what I can, Babes-I'll make you scream tonight, even if you're too incoherent to say my name._

Lydia flushed even redder, but that only hardened her resolve. Teach _him _to tray and control her life, dammit. It was only too bad she wasn't a lesbian, she thought viciously. Then she'd be as repulsed by his dream-touch as she ought to be already.

* * *

Sarah, for her part, was still too troubled to take any real interest in their further excursion. Jareth had - to her knowledge - largely stayed out of her life, but _now_-now she didn't know what to think. If he hadn't influenced her English department, surely someone who worked for him had, and that…well, it scared her. She'd beat him at his own game - she had no doubt he'd come gunning for her if he ever got the chance. And it seemed he was trying to make one. In his own way he had to be at least as dangerous as Lydia's ghost, though thank God he had yet to find a way to talk to her in her own head.

Yet.

She'd ask Hoggle tonight, if he had any idea what the hell was going on. The thought of thirty teenage idiots with their hands on that book almost made her sick; there was simply no way - _no way_ - that could possibly end well. She only had another day to do something about it, but do something she would, even if she didn't yet know what. The only thing she couldn't do was nothing.

* * *

A/N: Poor both of them…life is going to get very nasty and very complicated next chapter, though at least Claire will (sort of) get what's coming to her.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: In which things get even worse for both of them, but especially poor Lydia. Cookies to anyone who can spot the _Twin Peaks _reference.

* * *

Hoggle's answer, after much flustered blustering, amounted to "I have no idea."

"He's up to _something_, Sarah," the little goblin said, perched on the edge of the bed. "The whole Labyrinth knows it, but none of us know what. He has to be behind the books, though."

Sarah bit her lip. "I didn't think he could do that," she said, terribly worried. "Have that kind of influence overt this world."

"He's not supposed to be able to," Hoggle said gravely. "I don't know how he could, but he does. Be careful, Sarah - the owls are not what they seem."

What the hell did _that _mean? Hoggle seemed unusually nervous, and she wondered if Jareth had threatened him in some way. It wouldn't surprise her.

"I will be," she promised.

When Hoggle had gone she leaned back against her headboard and sighed. Her room was entirely different than Lydia's - even now she'd stuck with a vaguely medieval theme, with everything precisely in its place. She was almost a little OCD about it- even crooked pictures drove her mad, but at least it meant she never lost her homework.

Homework. She itched to get her fingers on all those damn books and destroy them before anyone did anything stupid. Out of the however many people who had tried over God knew how many years, she was the only person who'd beaten the Labyrinth, and she wasn't certain even she could do it again. By their age most people didn't have the requisite imagination to handle as bizarre a thing as the Labyrinth; even her friends at her old school didn't. The only one she could see having a shadow of a chance was Lydia - Jareth probably wouldn't have a clue how to deal with the girl, and she suspected the Labyrinth itself wouldn't, either. The place and its rules had been right up Sarah's alley - she'd figured them out and made them work _for _her, but Lydia would probably just ignore them and make her own. And Sarah thought she might be able to get away with it, too.

The rest of them, though…even Bertha and Prudence, those nice, awkward girls, would get eaten alive in there, maybe literally. Hooker Barbie's arrogance wouldn't help her, either, even if it did rival Jareth's.

_You're panicking prematurely, Sarah_, she chided herself. As she'd told Lydia, _the _line, the dangerous one, didn't actually appear in the text, and most high school students were so uninterested in their English reading that they might not do much (if any) out-of-class speculating. If Jareth really was behind this, he didn't know teenage girls very well - but then, to her knowledge he'd only met her, and she was hardly a typical specimen.

Oh well. If she thought about it any more tonight she'd go crazy. Tomorrow she'd get her uniforms, and Monday…well, they'd just have to see what happened.

* * *

_The Valium did no more good that night than it had the last, despite the double dose. All it meant was that Lydia's reaction time was slower, and when those cold ghost fingers trailed over her skin she wasn't quick enough to fight them off. Normally she hated the cold, but this ethereal, unseen touch was almost electric, and her body responded of its own accord before she could stop it._

"_I won't say it," she ground out, somehow keeping any trace of a whimper out of her voice despite the deliciously dangerous tingle along her sides._

_Cold breath and cold laughter at her ear, making her shiver. "You will eventually, but tonight I don't care, Babes. I told you I'd make you scream." And when that electricity traced down the curve of her hip and along her inner thigh she had to grip her dream-blankets and bite her lip, hard, against any vocalizations he might take as an encouraging sign. His touch might be cold but it was building an unfortunate heat within her, and when his fingers drifted higher and his mouth found her neck she gave up and writhed. If he kept this up every night he was going to drive her insane, but she wasn't going to say his name even once. Really. No matter how brain-destroying what he did might be._

"_Dammit, Beej," she gasped, when his questing fingers found what they sought, "this isn't going to-_Jesus._" That was it for her higher thought; all she could do was float on the liquid waves of _need _and try to keep quiet._

"_Beej? Even worse than B, if you ask me."_

"_I _didn't _ask-Christ, either finish what you started or get out and let me do it." She actually managed a coherent sentence before his mouth descended on hers and he kissed her with bone-melting intensity. That combined with the maddeningly deft skill of his fingers made white stars go nova behind her eyes, but by some miracle of effort she choked back the cry he'd promised he'd draw from her. She couldn't help but whimper, and arch desperately for contact she couldn't find, but she didn't scream._

"_Told you you wouldn't make me," she managed, after what seemed a small eternity, and if her words were a little slurred-well, she'd drugged herself, hadn't she? Maybe that had been a _bad _idea._

_Again came that soft laughter against her ear. "I've got all night, don't I?"_

_Lydia groaned, a combination of annoyance and unavoidable desire. "I hate you," she gasped, as his chilly fingers once again resumed their wandering._

"_Nothing you can do about it, Babes. I won't let you sleep until you say my name." His ghostly mouth was at her temple, her forehead, the fine delicate line of her jaw._

"_Pervert. I'll tell Juno on you." Enough of her brain had righted itself that she tried to find some way of evading his ministrations, but unseen hands grasped her wrists and pinned them to the bed._

"_You going to explain that to the Maitlands?" he asked, and she could _feel _him grinning. "Do it in front of a mirror-I want to watch. Besides," he added, and she shivered when chill, intangible kisses traveled over her collarbones, "Juno can't do a thing about it, Lyds. I'm not breaking any rules."_

_She squirmed, trying to free her wrists and failing utterly. "There has to be some rule against sleep-raping the living," she whispered, and felt him pause even if she still couldn't see him._

"…_That what you think I'm doing, Lyds?" There seemed to be genuine surprise in his voice, no longer near her ear, and she got the impression he was watching her carefully with unseen eyes._

_She shivered. "Well…yeah," she said, battering her brain to override her body. "I didn't _ask _for this, and if you weren't messing around in my head I'd never want it. Technically, that constitutes rape, Beej."_

_He didn't say anything for a long, long time, and now she shivered from outright cold rather than…anything else, and wondered what was going on in that creepy, half-cracked head of his._

"_Not what I meant to do, Babes." He sounded disturbingly…_serious_, and that was almost creepier than flippancy would have been. She wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish by it, only that it couldn't possibly be what he wanted her to think. B didn't work like that._

_Abruptly her wrists were released, and one invisible hand slipped through her hair to cradle the back of her head. "You want me to stop, Babes?" The words were spoken directly against her lips, and Lydia swallowed. Hard. What a question._

"…_Yes," she said, even while her stupid body tried to howl 'no'. _

_He kissed her one more time, not quite so fiercely, and a brushing touch passed over her hair before true, fitful, uneasy sleep took hold of her._

_

* * *

_

Monday morning turned out to be a flurry of activity, each class scrambling to organize itself. To her relief, Sarah had almost all her classes with Lydia-including English Lit-but unfortunately she also had a few with Claire Brewster.

English was second period, and while they were milling around trying to come up with a seating chart, Claire wandered up to her. She smelled like hairspray, expensive make-up, and even more expensive perfume, and somehow contrived to make her uniform seem like _haut couture, _and though her slightly condescending smile was friendly enough - if scarily, unnaturally white - it was also blatantly artificial.

"I saw you the other day," she said, "with the little freak group. I'm Claire."

"I'm Sarah," Sarah said, a little shortly-'freak group', indeed. She did not add 'nice to meet you' since it would be such a bald-faced lie.

Her repellant tone made Claire narrow her eyes, but before she could say anything else Sarah stalked off, depositing her books on the desk beside Lydia. _That _was a line in the sand right there, but Lydia was her friend and Claire could take a hike. Lydia looked even paler than usual, and the purple shadows around her eyes weren't make-up-the girl was obviously exhausted.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, while all around them chairs scraped and clattered.

"I didn't sleep well last night," Lydia said, just as quietly. There was a new facet to her troubled expression, an element of unmistakable confusion. "I'll tell you about it at lunch-B's up to something, and right now I have no idea what."

That didn't sound at all promising, but before Sarah could ask or Lydia could elaborate, the teacher actually rapped her desk with a ruler to get everyone's attention.

"Sit, girls. You've wasted too much time already," she said severely. Sarah winced-so she was _that _kind of teacher.

Mrs. Scarpello was a slightly stout woman, middling-tall, her age anywhere between fifty and seventy. Iron-grey hair styled in a shampoo set straight out of the 50's, pearl earrings the size of Ping-Pong balls, and the sort of primly restrained make-up one would expect from such a woman. No, Sarah thought, _definitely _not the sort of teacher who would pick out a book like _The Labyrinth _on her own. Damn.

The usual beginning-of-term rules sheets were passed out, along with a whole host of admonishments and instructions regarding behavior that Sarah completely ignored. The rest of the reading list was conventional enough, though she grimaced when she found _Catcher in the Rye_, a book she'd already been forced to read last year and had hated every word of. The fact that it was a typical collection of so-called "classic" literature only made _The Labyrinth _stick out all the more obviously. She wondered if all the books were meant to stay in the classroom, or if they'd be issued copies to take home, and hoped it would be the former. Less chance for trouble if people only had access to them one hour a day. She'd find out soon enough, she thought grimly, since it was the first selection on the list-if it really was Jareth behind all this, he certainly wasn't wasting any time.

"I expect all your final assignments to be on college-ruled paper, black ink only, and please no ballpoint pens," Mrs. Scarpello was saying, as she paced the lines of desks like some kind of middle-aged drill sergeant, searching them all with a critical eye. "Always in cursive unless specified otherwise, and you _will _be graded on your handwriting."

A quiet chorus of groans went up at that, though Sarah wasn't worried; she'd practiced so much calligraphy that her penmanship was quite good. Her father would gripe about the pens, though, since ink pens were rather more expensive than ballpoints.

"You will be issued your own copies of our first selection to take home with you, and I expect you to read the first chapter tonight and be prepared to discuss it tomorrow." Her tone made Sarah wonder just what she thought of the book itself, whether she approved or disapproved or simply didn't care - she was leaning toward the third option, since Mrs. Scarpello seemed more interested in maintaining order than actually teaching anything. She wondered how on Earth she was to manage to sit and discuss that damn book with all these other girls - it would require every ounce of drama practice she'd ever had, she thought.

Two girls were drafted to pass out the books, and when Sarah got hers she ran her fingers over the worn red cover, as though expecting it to bite. To think that once upon a time she'd acted out bits of it, had blithely recited lines with no idea the kind of consequences the story could produce. Had the book created the Labyrinth, or had the Labyrinth created the book?

"God, lame," Claire muttered, inspecting the cover and flipping it to read the description on the back. "At least it's short. Ish."

Sarah said nothing. All she could hope was that the rest of the class would take that attitude, because if they did they'd ignore it whenever it was out of sight. _Screw you, Jareth._

_

* * *

_

Lunch was chaotic, as befitted the first day of school, and Lydia and Sarah managed to sneak off into a corner amid all the confusion, for now avoiding Bertha and Prudence. The cafeteria food, Sarah found, actually wasn't bad, though Lydia didn't seem to have much appetite. Chilly thought it was, they opted to eat outside under one of the golden-red trees, the better to stay out of earshot of anyone else.

"What happened?" Sarah asked, around a bit of sandwich. "No offense, but you look awful. Did - he - do something to you?"

Lydia twitched visibly, picking at her salad. "I don't know what he thinks he's doing," she said. "He's trying to manipulate me, I know that, but I don't know why or what he actually wants. Other than Out, I mean."

"How do you know he wants to manipulate you?" Sarah said curiously. Lydia snorted.

"Because he tried to be _nice _to me. Beej…doesn't do nice, and if he is it's because he's got something else in mind. He's trying to trick me into letting him out, but if he thinks that will work, he must think I'm an idiot." She scowled, her expression nearly as black as her hair, and Sarah wondered what her friend wasn't telling her. _Something_, obviously, but she wasn't about to push too hard, figuring if Lydia wanted her to know she'd say something.

"Well, he knows threatening you won't work," she pointed out. "He's only got so many other options. He can't threaten you and he can't force you, so 'nice' is about all he can try next, right?"

Quite a bit of color came into Lydia's face then, rendering it crimson as a sunset. "He, uh, thought he could," she said, looking away. "Make me, I mean. He certainly _tried_."

"Thought he could make you-?" Sarah's eyes widened. "_Jesus_, are you serious?" She shuddered; she could only imagine how violating that must feel. If Jareth ever did it…no. She didn't care how compelling he was, that was just a no-go. "Are you - okay?"

Lydia nodded and took a swig off her water bottle, still not looking at Sarah. "Yeah, and that's part of what's confusing me," she said, so quietly Sarah could barely hear her. "I sort of pointed out that it was literal mind-rape, and it actually made him _stop._ I think that honestly hadn't occurred to him, and he seemed like he sort of regretted it, which I know damn well is a lie because Beej just doesn't do that. I don't like not being able to predict what he might do next."

Sarah shuddered again, and looked away herself. She didn't even want to think about what that would be like - her mind was her _mind_, the single bastion sanctuary into which nothing ought to be admitted without permission. In a way she really was weirdly grateful for Jareth, because if this B could talk to her in her head, he could probably do _other _things if it took his fancy-but as Lydia had told him, he'd have to deal with Jareth if he did. Sarah had no illusions that Jareth would likely do who knew what terrible things to her if he got out, but he wouldn't put up with anyone _else _doing so.

"You think he'd…try it again, tonight?" she said, eying her milk but not opening it.

"Only if he can't come up with something different," Lydia said meditatively. "He's…sneaky. A little too creative. Once he gets me to let him out he has to keep me from putting him back-he knows that. I think he'll try being nice until he gets too frustrated."

"…Then what?" Sarah asked, not sure she wanted to know.

Lydia sighed. "Well, in theory if he pushes too far I can report him to Juno - the Maitlands' caseworker. He's just so damn good at getting around the rules that I'm not sure it would be any kind of…of long-term solution."

The bell rang, cutting off further conversation, but while Sarah was walking to Math something Lydia had said struck her. 'Once he gets me to let him out' implied that sooner or later she _would_ - and it had obviously been an unconscious slip of the tongue. Oh jeeze. She wondered if she should bring it up later, and decided to save that decision until after school.

* * *

Betelgeuse sat very still for a long while after he left Lydia's dream, watching her settle into something like peaceful sleep.

It took a hell of a lot to make him actually stop and think, but her words had smacked him upside the head like a mallet. He might not have rules or even many standards, but there were a few things beneath even him. _He _didn't see what he'd done to her as rape-hell, she was having even more fun than he was - but _she _did. And that…bothered him, in a way he couldn't ignore any more than he could banish it. She'd genuinely startled the hell out of him when she said that, and Betelgeuse didn't like being startled-he much preferred being the cause of startlement in other people. It irritated him, but he couldn't shake it, especially with the way she'd said it - to her it was simple fact, implying that she thought he too knew that was what he was doing. That it had been his intent all along.

"Hell, Lyds," he muttered, "what kind of guy d'you take me for?" He was devious and disgusting and perverted, but he wasn't a damn rapist. Not intentionally, anyway.

He also wasn't sure why he cared. He hadn't been influencing her mind nearly as much as she'd thought-a healthy chunk of her response was all her. Telling her that wouldn't have altered her thoughts, though-she'd still see it as what she saw it as, and…well, dammit, he didn't _like _that. It wasn't what he wanted, and not getting what he wanted really pissed him off. How the hell was he going to get her to let him out now? She was definitely pissed at him, even more than before he'd started.

"You're making my life difficult, Babes," he said, shaking his head, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now. He needed her to let him out, but he needed her to let him _stay _out even before he (somehow) conned her into marrying him.

But…he didn't actually need _her _to do it. That Sarah-girl was out; he didn't know what her story was, but he wasn't about to get involved in it if he didn't have to, and in any case she knew what he was. There were mirrors in her school, though, and he could _use _mirrors-mirrors, and a gaggle of teenage girls, a few of whom had to be stupid enough to take the hint. He couldn't count on Lyds ever winding up desperate enough to call him-it would be nice, it would make things much, much easier, but he couldn't count on it. This time he actually needed a backup plan.

* * *

Lydia went up to her room straight after dinner, and carefully took down all her framed photographs, packing them away in drawers or under piles of clothes, until she'd got rid of every reflective surface she could find. Then she turned on the tall reading lamp beside her bed and curled up with her English assignment, trying to ignore any unfortunate dream-memories that might make themselves known again.

It wasn't terribly hard, at first. The little book would have been interesting even without what Sarah had told her, and she wondered how on Earth it had come to be written in this world. The prose was a little purple in spots, but quite lovely in others, painting vivid pictures of all the bizarre and fantastic settings.

It was the Goblin King who most caught her imagination, though-understandably, since her friend had met him. He really did sound a little bit like a more refined version of B, minus the perversion and the whole 'dead' bit. Tricky, arrogant, and a little drunk on his own power-probably not a gracious loser.

_Hot, though_, she thought, and indeed Sarah had spoken, a little awkwardly, about how unfortunately attracted to him she'd been. _Hot, creepy, and a little too fond of children. Eeeg._

_But not a total perv._ Memories of the last two nights now crowded back in with a vengeance, making her face flame even though she was alone. Kicking B out of her head had been the only right and _safe _thing to do, because _damn_… If he'd kept that up he might really have been able to make her say what he wanted. She wondered where the creep had learned how to do all that, and how he'd made it work on her so well. She wouldn't admit to herself that she was a little disappointed she couldn't let it continue.

_Good book?_

Lydia jumped, knocking the novel off the edge of the bed. Damn him-those two words sent goosebumps all over her skin, and a shiver that was a mix of revulsion and anticipation up her spine.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone," she said, somehow keeping her voice steady.

_Relax, Babes. I'm not here to try anything._

She let out a sigh of relief even as her body subsided in disappointment. "Then why _are _you here?"

_What, Lyds, I can't check up on you?_

"I'd rather you didn't," she groaned, leaning back against her headboard and pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm not letting you out."

_I'm not asking you to._

"Yeah, at the moment. What do you _want_, B?"

_Nothing you seem to be willing to give, so I'll settle for talking to you._

Lydia devoutly hoped he couldn't see how red she turned at that, and was extremely glad he couldn't feel the heat his words stirred in her. "Right," she said skeptically. "Why? What's in it for you?"

_Being dead's pretty boring, Babes. Tell me about that book, and what it has to do with that Sarah of yours._

Lydia frowned, and rubbed her temples. "I don't think I should," she said. "It's her story, not mine. Just leave her alone."

_Well, if you don't want to talk, there's _other _things we could do. _Faint, chilly, tingling lines brushed up her legs, slipping over her stomach, and she jumped again, cursing herself for the strangled half-gasp that escaped her throat.

"Stop it, Beej," she said, swatting at where his hands ought to have been. How the hell could he do that while she was awake?

_Can't blame a guy for trying._

"Oh yes I can," she muttered. "Hands to yourself."

He only half listened to her-that tingling touch left her sides and settled instead on her temples, rubbing little soothing circles that made her stomach tighten. She shut her eyes, figuring it couldn't hurt to let him do that much. "How can you touch me if you're still in the Neitherworld?" she asked, relaxing almost in spite of herself.

_Trade secret, Babes. Sure you don't want to let me out? Could give you a better massage that way. _There wasn't too much of a leer in his voice, though.

"_Beej_," she growled, wondering why he'd suddenly decided to quit threatening-it had to be just what she'd told Sarah would happen, B changing tactics since he knew his first hadn't worked. It wasn't a bad change, even if she was still necessarily wary of him and anything he said or did. All that _you're mine _stuff hadn't just vanished, after all; he was still up to something.

_Fine, you're no fun. So. Book. Tell._

She rolled her eyes, but that lovely electric touch had moved to her scalp, massaging so deftly it was all she could do not to purr. This was almost more dangerous than the other, because at first glance it didn't seem so. It was easier to accept it.

"The story's true," she said at last. "The Labyrinth actually exists…somewhere. Sarah's been there." That was all she was offering, massage or no massage. Well, except, "Sarah thinks the goblin king might be messing with the outside world. She doesn't know how he _could _be, but some weird stuff's going on. And that's all I'm saying."

_He might be dangerous, Lyds._

She snorted, though her eyes drifted shut again as the tingle worked its way to the base of her skull. "That's a bit rich, coming from you," she said. "He's not like you - he can't just get let out and raise hell. Even if you say his name three times." Thank God.

_Then how did Sarah wind up in his Labyrinth?_

"He can pull people _in_, but she's pretty sure he can't get out and stay out long, or he would've come and got her by now. She says he's got to have to be as mad at her as you are at me."

_I'm not mad at you, Babes._

That made her laugh outright. "Bullshit," she said. "How dumb do you think I am? All that 'I'll force you to say my name' crap, and 'you're _mine, _Lydia'-you wouldn't be as nasty to me as you've been up until now if you weren't pissed off at me."

Silence. She had him there, and she knew it. It kind of pissed _her _off, that he'd think so little of her as to expect her to actually fall for that. When a minute elapsed and he still hadn't responded, she retrieved her book from the floor and opened it again.

_Let's just say I've had a change of heart, _he finally tried.

"You don't _have _a heart, Beej," she pointed out, not looking up from her page. "You're dead, remember? Look, I know you can shape shift - if you really want out so damn bad, clean yourself up a little and go after Claire Brewster. She might even be dumb enough to marry you."

_But she's not _you, _Lyds._

Lydia let out an exasperated sigh, snapping the book shut. "Look, I get it, okay? The Maitlands and I cheated you and now you want revenge, but dammit Beej, you don't _need _it. You don't need me, either, and I'm not going to let you out, let alone marry you. The longer you try to trick me, the longer you'll be stuck in the Neitherworld, so just - find someone else already. There's billions of girls out there, there has to be at lesat one who wouldn't mind being 'yours'." After all, there were plenty of really kinky people, some of whom would be all over a responsive dead guy. He'd be a necrophiliac's wet dream. Maybe even literally, if he wanted that.

_But they're still not _you, _Lyds. You're…different, and I know you haven't been able to get me out of your mind any more than I've got you out of mine._

"Not for lack of trying," she muttered. "I've got a lot of homework, B. If you're really so set on making me like you, you'll leave me alone so I can do it."

_Fine. I'll prove it to you, Lyds. _The light touch at her scalp stopped, and all sense of his presence vanished. She tried to tell herself she was relieved.

Damn it. _Damn _it. She had him nailed a little better than he liked. He didn't expect his sudden change in behavior to work right away, but he also hadn't expected her to be so perceptive. She was only seventeen, for fuck's sake.

But then, as he'd told her, she was different. She knew aspects of him too well, given the short time she'd known him, though she didn't know everything, not by a long shot. He was telling at least a half-truth when he said he wasn't mad at her anymore-he wasn't angry the same way he had been. Not it was more like unbelievable frustration. She had him dead to rights when she told him he was out for revenge, and she hadn't bought the 'change of heart' bit even for a moment-he was beginning to realize she was something of a ruthless pragmatist. She was also right when she said it would be easier to find someone else, but dammit, he didn't _want _anyone else. He'd told Barbara he thought Lydia understood him, and in some ways she did a little too well. Definitely not a pushover, his Lyds, but then he wouldn't want her if she was. It seemed she could be as stubborn as he was - he might be an unstoppable force, but it was looking like she was very much an immovable object. Damn. This wasn't just revenge anymore, or possessiveness, or even carnal desire - this was personal. It was a good thing nobody else in the Neitherworld knew about his little problem, or his reputation would be ruined.

He couldn't handle this right now. Pestering her further wouldn't help at all-for now he'd go out on the town and see if he couldn't scare up a little entertainment.

Literally.

* * *

Sarah's hatred of _Catcher in the Rye _came directly from me, as did her annoyance with so-called "classic" books-the only two we read in high school that didn't irritate the crap out of me were _The Great Gatsby _and _Once and Future King._

Next chapter has Beej making some very unhappy discoveries, Claire being…Claire, and some ominous rumblings from the Neitherworld.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Beej is NOT happy in this one; life seems to be blindsiding him a lot the last few days. I didn't intend this story to be half so dark as it apparently wants to be, though given my other fics I think I'm just incapable of writing light and funny.

* * *

Betelgeuse had wanted entertainment. He _hadn't _wanted Juno.

He'd been Summoned halfway through his third beer, peremptorily and without warning, landing in a chair in her cluttered office with a dull _oof. _As usual, the place was packed with stacks of paper and hazy with cigarette smoke, and he waved it away and regarded his former boss, wondering why she'd called him. She looked angry, but Juno always looked angry.

"What?" he said, aggrieved. Sure, his visits to Lyds had been technically against the rules, but not nearly enough so to warrant _this_, and hew as pretty sure he hadn't committed any bigger crimes lately.

"I know you've been visiting the Deetz girl," she said, without preamble, "but I'm not here to get you in trouble. Since you're so fixated on her, you might as well make yourself useful."

"Huh?" What the hell was she talking about?

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Juno said, taking a long drag off her cigarette and letting the smoke drift out through the hole in her throat, "but there's trouble coming. Maybe big trouble, and thanks to Sarah Williams, the Deetz girl is part of it."

Now she'd lost him entirely. "Juno, you've got to give me more than that. Are you talking trouble in the Otherworld?"

She shifted a pile of nicotine-yellowed papers. "No, but it might spill over there. I never told you this," she added, fixing him with a stern, beady eye, "but there's a war brewing a dimension over, and the Williams girl is its link to the Otherworld. She's friends with Deetz, who thanks to _you _is a link to our world. You see where I'm going with this?"

"Not really," he returned. "We're not actually married, remember?"

"She let you out last, you moron, and even though you're not married you came close enough to make all this my problem. _Our _problem. Kid was closer to the Neitherworld than most breathers even before she saw the Maitlands, and _none _of you have helped."

If he'd still been alive, Betelgeuse probably would have started getting a headache right about now. "So Lyds might let some damn war in some other damn dimension in here? Even if the Williams kid brought it to the Otherworld, what would the odds be of Lyds bringing it in here? Even _I _know that's shitty logic."

"It is," Juno sighed, taking another draw off her cigarette, "but the possibility's there, and there are - certain elements - here who want to get rid of it, if you take my meaning."

It took him a moment, but once he had he felt something in his gut tighten. "They want to kill Lyds?" he asked, in disbelief.

"If you can't convince them you can keep her from being a danger to the Neitherworld, they're _going _to," Juno said, watching him carefully. "What's brewing in the Labyrinth and the Legendverse is no horseshit, B, and if it spills over here it could tear the Neitherworld apart."

She tossed something onto the desk in front of him - a dull silvery butterfly-knife about the size of his palm. He took it in one grimy hand, turning it over. "What's this for?"

"Worst-case scenario," Juno said flatly. "We've only got one living link to the Otherworld that's connected to this. If it gets to the Otherworld, you need to sever the connection."

Betelgeuse stared at the thing, truly horrible comprehension hitting him like a cinderblock to the chest. "They want _me _to-?"

"If it becomes necessary, yes."

He kept staring at the knife, unable to tear his eyes away. He'd be the first to admit he was a grade-A asshole, and if it were anyone else he wouldn't bat an eyelash, but…_Lydia. _Lyds. He tried to imagine using it on her, and actually shuddered.

"I had to fight to even give you the chance to try," Juno said, a little more gently. "You won't have an easy time getting her to trust you, but if you can-if you can keep it from reaching her - you won't need that."

"Can't we just kill the Williams kid?" he asked, finally looking back up at her. If it meant Lyds would be safe, he'd do it himself. Juno snorted.

"Don't even think about it, B," she said. "Sarah's outside our jurisdiction. You'd better hope nothing happens to her, because if it does the Goblin King will try to come get her back."

"You mean-?" he prompted, unable to believe it.

"He'd invade the Neitherworld for her. And yes, he could do it-the royals are right to be nervous about him." She crushed her cigarette out in her hubcap-sized ashtray. "Those two should never have met - it's our fault and I admit it. We weren't keeping a close enough watch on the Deetz girl, and we're paying for it now. You seem so obsessed with her, so you make sure _she _doesn't pay for it herself. That's not an official order, it's a personal one," she added. "If we do have to kill her it'll be a bad precedent. The Neitherworld isn't supposed to interfere like that out there, but we've never faced anything like this before."

Betelgeuse was not a creature much given to thinking about anything beyond himself, but he wasn't stupid. He could well imagine the consequences of this whole thing if it got out of hand, on a grand scale and a more…personal one. In all the bio-exorcisms he'd ever performed, he'd never actually killed anyone, because even he knew better than to break that rule. And _Lydia_…even at his most angry he'd never wished her dead, and he'd certainly never contemplated killing her.

"She won't believe me," he said at last. "Hell, _I _wouldn't believe me, and how am I supposed to do anything if she won't let me out?"

Juno waved an irritated hand. "If she really won't, I'll talk to her, but I'd rather not have to. I'm interfering enough as it is. I can't override your name curse, but if you can convince her she can trust you she'll do it herself." She gave him what was almost a glare. "You haven't done a single decent thing in your afterlife, so this is your chance to make up for it. And I swear if you ask what's in it for you I'll throw my desk at you - I've gone to bat for you too many times for you to ignore this. You owe me, and you owe her. If you hadn't been an idiot and tried to marry her, none of us would be in this kind of danger. You're also probably the only person in the Neitherworld who could do it, too," she admitted grudgingly. None of the bureaucracy liked to think about just how powerful he really was, because some things scared even the dead. In a way Juno - and the rest of them - were grateful he had no ambition whatsoever, because if he really wanted to he could give the royals a run for their money. "Now don't screw it up."

-p

"I was right," Lydia said, when she met Sarah before school the next morning. "B's already trying another tactic. I'm kind of insulted that he'd think I'd fall for it."

They were sitting on the fence that separated the boys' school from the girls'. It was a chilly golden morning, the air quite still without so much as a hint of a breeze, and their breath rose in frosty clouds.

"Well, he doesn't actually know a whole lot about you, does he?" Sarah said. Not like Jareth, she thought with a shiver - he was, in some ways, a little too perceptive for his comfort. It was her turn to be uneasy today - she'd found a huge snowy owl perched in the tree outside her window last night, and she hadn't forgotten Hoggle's warning - 'the owls are not what they seem'. She was pretty sure snowy owls didn't even live in this part of Connecticut. It was one more weird thing for her to worry about.

Lydia grimaced. "No, he doesn't, but I think he's trying to learn. He was asking a lot of question about the Labyrinth, too, until I told him to get lost, and what was even weirder was that he actually did it."

"What did you tell him?" Sarah asked, wincing.

"Not much. Just that the story was real. He said the Goblin King might be dangerous. I told him he was one to talk."

Sarah snorted. "God I hope those two never meet here. They'd either get along like a house on fire or go to war against each other."

"B's too lazy to go to war against anyone," Lydia said dryly. "He's pissy and vindictive, but if something was too much effort I don't think he'd bother."

Sarah shook her head. Jareth was the kind of person she could easily see pushing someone until they snapped, and this B sounded pretty crazy already. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "if you let B out, I wonder what would happen if we wished him away to the Labyrinth. I wonder if Jareth would be able to take him there - I wouldn't mind them meeting if they could fight it out _there._"

Now it was Lydia who shivered. "I don't think I want to try it," she said. "Beej _would _fight that - he wants out of the Neitherworld, but he wants to be _here_. I still don't know how powerful he actually is, but he saved the Maitlands, so he's got to be stronger than they are. That might really start a war."

The bell rang, cutting off further speculation, and they trudged into the building. In spite of herself, Sarah was morbidly curious as to what her English class would make of the first chapter of _The Labyrinth_, particularly Claire - assuming she'd even bothered to do the reading.

* * *

It turned out to be more interesting than she'd thought it would.

She'd expected Bertha and Prudence - especially Prudence - to actually think about it instead of just reading it, but even some of Claire's clique seemed to be genuinely into it. Apparently not all of them were as brainless as her, and one or two managed to even contribute to the discussion.

"Why would the girl wish her brother away in the first place?" Mrs. Scarpello asked, and Sarah wondered if she was reading off a preprinted list of questions. Probably.

"Who _hasn't _wished their little brother would disappear?" That was one of Claire's hangers-on - Tiffany, Sarah thought her name was, like the singer. That got a laugh from half the class, presumably those with younger siblings.

"And it's not like she'd expect anything to come of it," Sarah added. "I mean, who would?"

"Lydia, maybe," Claire giggled, and the teacher threw her a stern glance.

"Another little kid, maybe," Lydia said, glaring at her, "but not a teenager. People might believe In all kinds of things, but I don't think many sane people would actually expect goblins to invade their house just because they wished their little sibling away."

She glanced at Sarah, who gave her a small, wry smile.

"And what of Alexandra's sudden determination to take her younger brother back? To rescue him in spite of the danger?"

"Her parents would probably kill her if they came home and he was missing," Claire snorted.

_Selfish motivation, _Sarah thought. "Annoying as he is, he's still her little brother, and sometimes you don't realize how much you love something - or someone - until you don't have them anymore. She was the one who wished him away, so it was her job to get him back. No matter how dangerous the Labyrinth is. Was."

"She had to know the Goblin King was going to like, cheat, right?" Tiffany said, twirling a strand of dark hair around her finger. "I mean, he sounds like a real as - uh, jerk. But she went in anyway."

"Stupid," Claire muttered.

"Desperate," Lydia countered. "Brave. It would take a lot of guts to go in knowing the game was rigged."

"Besides," Sarah said, "you can manipulate the rules of almost anything without actually cheating. And it helps that he underestimates her. A lot."

"Why would he do that?" Bertha asked.

"Because she's a teenage girl," Sarah said, a little bitterly. "Look how few people in the real world take us seriously."

"Good point," Tiffany said. Claire glared at her. "What? It's true."

"What I want to know," Prudence said, flipping through the first chapter again, "is does it only work on children? Is there some kind of age cutoff?"

"I know who I'd wish away if there wasn't," Claire said sweetly, looking at Lydia, and Sarah paled.

"I think it's only children," she said hurriedly, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "It says in the book that the goblins are _children _wished away by their brothers and sisters." She actually had no idea at all how that worked - if there really was an age cutoff. Or not.

"Yes, but what's the definition of a child?" Prudence persisted. "Anyone below the age of thirteen? Eighteen?"

"I think you're reading too much into it," Lydia said. "It's a fantasy, it doesn't have to follow normal rules."

Mercifully, the bell rang before Prudence could ask any more questions, and Sarah breathed an audible sigh of relief. There were eighteen chapters in the book-she somehow had to get through another seventeen days of this. At this rate she'd have a nervous breakdown by the time they were done.

* * *

Sarah decided to go home with Lydia after school, because they both had quite a bit of homework, and she was much too tense to be on her own.

Lydia made certain the curtains were drawn, shutting out the afternoon sunshine and eliminating whatever reflection the window might have cast. The pair sat on the floor, slightly cluttered with boxes, leaning against the foot of the bed.

"I bet you Claire tries it on someone," Sarah said. "I wish she'd break a leg or something and miss a few weeks of school."

The savagery in her voice made Lydia wonder if she wouldn't try to arrange that herself. "It has to be the exact words though, right? The 'right now' and everything?"

"I think so. I haven't exactly tested it or anything since then."

They somehow managed to sigh in unison, but before Lydia could reply there came,

_Lyds. Lydia, I need to talk to you. You _have _to let me out._

Both girls twitched, though Lydia more so, because there was recognizable, unmistakable _worry _in Betelgeuse's voice. "What?" she said. "Why?"

_It's important, Lyds. You and Sarah both need to hear it. Let me out-I promise I'll behave. This is fucking _serious.

Lydia swallowed. Nothing Betelgeuse had ever done had managed to scare her as much as his tone now did. Even he couldn't be faking it, either - there was a sincerity in it that couldn't be manufactured by anyone. If something was worrying him, it _had _to be bad.

"I'm going to regret this," she muttered. "Betelgeuse."

"What are you doing?" Sarah whispered. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No," Lydia whispered back. "Betelgeuse."

Sarah was already looking around the room, close to panicked, her back pressed hard against the bed. Lydia herself drew a long breath, trying and failing to steady her nerves.

"Betelgeuse."

She didn't know how the hell he did it - one moment he wasn't there, the next he was, before either of them could even blink. Sarah stifled a little shriek, but Lydia could only stare. "You look like hell, Beej," she said.

He did, too. She hadn't thought ghosts could lose weight, but he'd lost far too much-his striped suit hung on him like a tent, and his cheeks were so hollow his cheekbones stood out like razors. His hair was still the same, at least, a wild blonde halo with a slight chlorine-green tint to it. The moss was still there, too, all along his hairline, but the poison-green eyes in his shadowed sockets seemed more than alive.

"Thanks a lot, Babes," he snorted, sitting on the rug facing them. Sarah couldn't take her horrified eyes off him, but he himself only looked at Lydia. "We've got trouble, Lyds. Juno called me in today." He leaned forward, elbows rested on his knees. "She said there's war starting between the Labyrinth and some other place, and the royals in the Neitherworld're worried about it spilling over our way, through you." His eyes flicked to Sarah a moment, who sat frozen, then back to Lydia. "They want to kill you, Lyds."

Lydia stared at him, her dark eyes huge. "What? _Why_? And - when?" She looked around, searching for ghostly assassins in the shadowy corners.

"She's the Goblin King's link to your world, and you're the link to ours," he said, nodding at Sarah. "I'm not going to let them do it, Babes," he added. "Juno said if I can watch over you they'll leave you alone, but you have to trust me. You _have _to."

It seemed to Lydia that the bottom had suddenly dropped out of the world. Kill her - _kill _her?

"Kill me?" she whispered. Betelgeuse's intense urgency was such that she didn't doubt he was telling the truth. He wouldn't make up something like that, not when he knew she could cross-check it through the Maitlands. All the blood had drained from her face, leaving her half-dizzy, and she rested her head against her knees.

"I won't let them, Lyds," he said again. "I _won't_. But you have to work with me - if I say I need out, you have to let me out."

This was…too damn much. Betelgeuse sounded more serious than she would have thought possible-it was yet another personality shift, and she didn't know if she could handle it. A year ago she'd have gladly died and followed Barbara and Adam, but a lot had changed since then. And Beej - well, he had a vested interest in keeping her alive, didn't he? His selfishness, oddly, would probably make him actually work to make sure nothing killed her. Oh, the irony.

"What do you mean, war?" Sarah asked. "Did Jareth finally piss someone off too much?"

Betelgeuse shrugged. "I only know what Juno told me," he said. "Which wasn't much. The Labyrinth and the Legendverse, whatever the hell that is. Dunno why she thinks you'd be involved, even if you _have _been there."

Lydia looked at her friend, who was white to the lips, looking nearly as horrified as she herself felt. She didn't need telepathy to know what Sarah was thinking - the sudden appearance of the books made much more sense now.

"He's looking for a way in, isn't he?" she asked softly.

"I think he must be," Sarah said unevenly. "He knows I'd never call him out, so he's trying to find someone else who will. I just…if he's going to war, I don't know what he'd want with _me. _I'm just a human."

"Maybe you're not." Betelgeuse's green eyes regarded her appraisingly. "Has anyone else ever gone in that place and gotten out?"

Sarah bit her lip so hard she almost drew blood. "I don't think so," she said, though now she didn't sound as sure as she had when she'd told Lydia her story. "I've been wondering…I don't know how the book could have been written if nobody else ever had. It's an old book, though - maybe, if someone else did, they've got to be either dead or really, really old by now."

"Things like that…leave marks," he said at last. "There's a reason we're not supposed to let breathers into the Neitherworld. If you beat this Jareth guy, it may be you took some of his power away, and he wants it back."

Sarah shuddered, drawing her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. She looked…well, fourteen again, a girl not much more than a child facing the terrible unknown with only thirteen hours to beat it. "Maybe that's why he wanted me to stay with him so badly," she said suddenly, and Lydia's eyebrows shot up - she hadn't heard _that _part of the story. "He seemed awfully set on trying to make me stay, but I said-" She paused, something obviously occurring to her. "I said he had no power over me."

Betelgeuse snorted. "Then maybe it was more than his ego that took a hit," he said. "I dunno how the rules work in that Labyrinth, but maybe you made him weaker when you beat him at his own game."

Sarah shuddered again, and Lydia laid a hand on her shoulder, though she knew there was nothing she could say. "Can you - would you look after Sarah, too?" she asked, almost hesitantly. He shook his head.

"Juno says she's out of our jurisdiction. I'm not sure what that means, except she's in no danger of being killed by the royals. They can't."

Lydia breathed a sigh of semi-relief. Whatever else Sarah might have to worry about, _that _wasn't part of it. "How can you keep them from killing _me_, though?" she asked. She didn't like the sound of 'royals', given the sort of power it implied. Betelgeuse gave her a crooked grin.

"Ghost with the Most, Babes, remember? Any've them try to fuck with you, they'll be looking for their teeth. In their own ass."

That brought a shadow of a smile to Lydia's face, but it was very brief. So he was probably telling the truth when he said he'd look after her, but could she actually _trust _him? Especially after what he'd done to her in her sleep…she really, really hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt; she rested her forehead against her knees, just in case.

One cold dead hand touched hers, and she jumped, her eyes peering at him over the plaid fabric of her skirted knees.

"You can trust me, Lyds," he said, apparently reading her mind. "I'm not…gonna do that."

That reassurance didn't do anything for her flaming face, any more than the odd and not unpleasant feel of his hand on hers. "This is just too much," she said, by way of distraction. "Finding out the rulers of the afterlife want to kill me…jeeze, I don't know how the hell to take it."

"Neither do I," he admitted. "But they'd have to go through me first, and there's not many in the Neitherworld stupid enough to cross me."

"I…should probably go," Sarah said, and Lydia wondered if she wanted to talk to her friends from the Labyrinth. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, okay?" She was still far too pale, her eyes wide and filled with a mixture of shock, fear, and something very much like anger. If that Goblin King though he was going after a pushover, Lydia thought dimly, he was likely in for a very big surprise.

"Okay," she said. "Be careful."

Sarah cast a glance at Betelgeuse, still sitting like a slightly malevolent striped spider. "You too," she said, and when she left she shut the door very carefully behind her.

When she'd gone, Lydia tried to draw a deep breath, but only managed to shiver. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, she too was getting decidedly pissed off. "This is your fault, isn't it?" she asked, now half glaring at him. "If you hadn't tried to marry me, there wouldn't be this…link, whatever it is."

He had the grace to look almost something like guilty. "It'd still be there, just not…this bad. Even if it wasn't for me, you'd still have the link through the Maitlands, but it wouldn't be so strong." Again came that crooked smile, though there wasn't much that might be called humor in it; it was fey, feral, and admittedly downright scary. "Nobody fucks with my Lyds, okay? I don't care if the Prince himself comes after you - you're not gonna die."

"You'd be kind of hosed if I did, wouldn't you?" she said, still peering at him. In the dim light her eyes were black, as black as the curtain of her hair, twin black holes that neither admitted or released light.

"I would," he said quietly, "but that's not why I'm here." His own eyes…_burned_, cold green fire, and she found herself hoping she never wound up on the receiving end of his glare. She found she didn't want to ask him just why he _was _here - it was probably, she thought, something she didn't want to know. He was close enough for her to smell him, that peculiar damp earth/moldering leaves/ancient pine scent that seemed so odd coming from a man who was literally a corpse.

"So how does this work?" she asked after a moment, unable to stand the silence. "You just…shadow me everywhere I go?" God, that would be too creepy, knowing that everywhere she went a perverted poltergeist would be watching her, even if he _had _promised to behave.

"Kinda, yeah. That's sort of what watching you means. Juno said the royals were gonna give me a chance to make sure nothing could use you even if you're alive, but I don't trust 'em. Just think of me as a bodyguard."

The idea was so ridiculous she had to laugh, though there was no more humor in it than there had been in his smile. "Okay," she said. "But no watching me in the shower."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Babes," he said, with a grin that was only a little wicked. "Well, I might, but I wouldn't do it. I promised I'd behave, remember?"

"You did," she said, not trusting that promise to last in the slightest. "How long is this going to go on for?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. I don't think even Juno knows. Until this war is over, probably, however the hell long that will take. Until then you've got yourself a personal poltergeist."

_Great_, she thought, wondering what kind of hell he'd start raising whenever he got bored. Winter River probably wouldn't remain peaceful for very long. "You don't have to stick with me the whole time though, right? I mean, can you go off and do your own thing?"

"Sure, if I wanted to," he said, in a tone that implied he had no intention of doing so at all. She didn't trust _that _to last, either.

Finally she stood, dusting off her skirt and looking down at him. "You might want to now, then," she said. "I've got a lot of homework and you'll probably be bored out of your mind."

"Part of it involves that book, doesn't it?" he said, rising with her. She knew he wasn't actually terribly tall, but compared to _her _he was; the top of her head barely came up to his chin. "Either read some of it to me, or let me read it. I want to know what the hell we're up against, and your buddy seems way too jumpy to talk about it much."

Lydia tried not to roll her eyes. She had a feeling she wasn't going to get near as much done tonight as she ought to. "Okay," she muttered, digging the little red book out of her backpack. When she turned back she discovered he'd flopped on her bed, leaning back against the headboard and trying not to grin. Now she _did _roll her eyes - he might have promised to behave himself, but he was still a pervert, and she was somehow going to have to learn to deal with the more innocent aspects of that, if there even was such a thing as innocent perversion. So long as he didn't actually try anything, she really couldn't object. Too much.

"We've already done the first chapter," she said resignedly, sitting next to him with rather ill grace and a glare that told him he'd better keep his hands to himself. "Basically it's Alexandra wishing her brother away and the Goblin King giving her thirteen hours to solve the Labyrinth to get him back. I think chapter two is when she actually sees the Labyrinth itself."

She clicked on her reading lamp and opened the book, trying to ignore the fact that there was, you know, a dead guy sitting next to her. It was just _weird_, sitting so close to a creature that radiated the kind of chill he did - the Maitlands did too, of course, but either theirs wasn't nearly so pronounced, or she'd just gotten used to it in the last year.

"The ground was uneven, sloping and dusty-red, with only a few twisted and stunted trees, and before her loomed the outer wall of the Labyrinth, dark and forbidding - jeeze, what a run-on sentence. To one side was a little pond, green with scum and water-lilies, and beyond it was a gate, black as the wall itself and twice as high as her head.

"How can I solve this in thirteen hours, she thought, quailing at even the gate. The gates must be locked and barred, and I could never climb that stone. Huh," she said, mostly to herself. "No mention of Hoggle. Sarah said he was the one who told her how to get in."

"Maybe he wasn't alive then, if this book is so old," Betelgeuse pointed out. He was leaning in a little to see the page, and she had to resist the urge to elbow him. For all she knew he was just doing this on auto-pilot.

"Or maybe it's - I don't know, some kind of second-hand account? I wish we knew more about the author." She huffed an irritated sigh, flipping through the pages at random.

Betelgeuse looked at her, his expression the strangely thoughtful one she had a feeling she was going to learn to dread eventually. "Well, if she _is _dead, we can ask her ourselves."

* * *

A/N: We will see Jareth soon, I promise. This war is going to be pretty weird and rather nasty, but God help the first person who tries to fuck with Lydia. Beej might have lightened up on the creepo routine, but he's still Mister Possessive Poltergeist. Poor Sarah is worried for all the wrong reasons, though, as she'll soon find out.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: In which we (finally) have a Jareth, and they all get their first inkling of just what this war is really about. And, God help everyone, he and Betelgeuse actually meet. XD

* * *

Full night had fallen before Sarah ventured out into her backyard, a carved walking stick in one hand and a mix of anger and terror in her eyes.

"I know you're out there," she said to the darkness. Her yard backed up onto a greenbelt of oak and aspen, and outside the yellow circle of the porch light all was pitch-black shadow. The waning moon had not yet risen, but she had a feeling it wouldn't do much about that blackness even when it did. "Talk to me already."

Her eyes caught a flash of white - the great snowy owl, perched high in an aspen just beyond the circle of lamplight. "'The owls are not what they seem'," she said softly, "so if you're not what you seem, what _are _you?"

The bird stared at her in silence, tawny eyes glowing, refracting what little light there was. The loud flutter of wings when it took off startled her so much she almost dropped her stick. It swooped down into the undergrowth, and then _other _eyes were watching her, very close, though their owner was only a dim silhouette. She realized with a lurch that she knew them - they'd haunted her dreams and nightmares for the last three years.

"Jareth?" she breathed, and her grip on the stick tightened even though she knew it would be useless against him.

"Don't sound so surprised, Sarah." His voice was just as she'd remembered it, rough like smoky bourbon. "You knew I would find you eventually."

"Then why the books?" she asked, refusing to back away even though he was closer than she liked. "Why _now_? Be - Lydia's ghost said you're going to war with some other…something. What's going on here?"

He stepped forward, his face moon-pale above the high collar of his cloak. "It's already started," he said. "I need access to your world, Sarah, and the books will give it to me, if anyone says the words."

She still held her ground, though she really, _really _didn't want to. "You're here now," she said. "What do you need the books for, if you're already here?" She'd grown quite a bit in the last few years, to the point where he didn't tower so much over her, so _why _was he still so intimidating?

"I can't stay," he said gravely, taking another step toward her. "Not for long. I _must _have access to Earth, or I will be sorely outmatched." He gave her what was almost a sneer. "You told me I had no power over you, but you _took _some from me, and I need. It. Back."

Something in her faltered a moment, but only a moment - her resolve steeled itself, and she glared right back at him. "Fine, I'll give it back. You can't stay here, though, you'd mess up _everything_. The Neitherworld wants to kill my friend because you're trying to - to do whatever the hell it is you're doing." He was still scary, but she was in her own world now, not his Labyrinth, and even if the confidence that gave her was illusory, it was there nonetheless. No matter that the way he looked at her made her shiver.

"I have no quarrel with Earth," he said, "nor with the Neitherworld, whatever that is. My only quarrel with your world, Sarah Williams, is with _you_. You can't simply give back what I lost - you took it without knowing what you were doing."

Something in her went cold at that, but she still didn't back away - half because she was nearly paralyzed now. "What does that mean?" she asked, somehow keeping her voice even. "What is it you _want _from me, exactly?"

He took another step toward her, until he could have reached out and touched her. "You must return to the Labyrinth with me," he said, so quietly she almost couldn't hear him. "Darkness of the world of Legend threatens the whole of my realm, and without what you have I cannot hold him back forever. I have no allies, Sarah - I must do this on my own, and without the power you took from me I can't. And if he overruns the Labyrinth, Earth will be next."

"Could he - _do _that?" she asked, uncertain whether or not to believe him.

Jareth actually sighed. "He has access to powers beyond even me," he said, clearly not wanting to admit it. "For now. With what you took from me, I might hold him off for decades."

"But not defeat him?" she said, almost a whisper. The idea of Jareth not being much stronger than…well, anything…was completely incomprehensible. Whatever - whoever - this Darkness was, he must be scary as hell.

He shot her an annoyed look, clearly irritated she'd mentioned it. "No. Not yet. I don't yet know enough about him to know how he will fight, or where, or even precisely when." Those strange mismatched eyes seemed to hold her half hypnotized - _that _at least hadn't changed from the last time she'd seen him. "If I could use your world, though - if I could draw on its power - I would have the advantage. I would not be alone, with only my own resources."

"Do you want me to fight with you?" she asked, trying to figure out what exactly it was he wanted from her - what it was he had to do to her in the Labyrinth. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the idea of going back there, no matter how many times she'd dreamed of it.

"No!" The sudden fierceness in his reply startled her. "It would be much too dangerous, Sarah. I don't want you anywhere near that creature, or anything he controls." He actually reached out and grabbed her shoulders. "You have no idea what it is I face, and I would keep it that way. If Darkness learns of you…." He shook his head. "No. I won't allow it. He'll not have anything to hold over my head."

His touch made her shiver so much he had to feel it. It wasn't just the warmth of his hands, it was the _strength _- he'd never actually touched her before, and she wasn't prepared for the sheer, inhuman strength she sensed even from that light contact. He could break her in half if he wanted, without so much as breaking a sweat - assuming goblin kings even _could _sweat.

His words, though, just made her mad. "Too dangerous?" she said, a little incredulously. "_Too dangerous_? I made it through your Labyrinth, didn't I?"

"This isn't the Labyrinth, Sarah," he said harshly. "It's very much worse. Perhaps you could handle it, but I will not risk it."

"Excuse me, but I think that's _my _decision," she snapped, trying to keep her voice down. "You want me to go back to the Labyrinth with you - you expect me to _trust _you, then you try to act like my stepmother? It doesn't wash, Jareth."

"You're still far too stubborn, aren't you?" he said quietly, though there was something very much like respect in his voice. His next words, though, chilled her. "Sarah, I could have killed you in there any time I chose. The minions of this Darkness creature would have no such compunction, and I will not let that happen. I'll put you to sleep a hundred years if I have to."

"With what?" she said softly, danger in her tone. "A peach? If I have some of your power, it can protect me, right? If I learn how to use it?"

He went very, very still, and she knew she'd guessed correctly. "Here's the deal," she went on, in a tone that would brook no argument. "I'll help you with this, because in some damn way it seems I owe you, but whatever it is of yours I took I won in a fair contest. You're not going to treat me like a child this time, do you hear me?"

Jareth looked at her as though he were just now seeing her for the first time. "You've changed," he said at last. "Perhaps I had more influence on you than I thought, you infuriating girl. I cannot take back what you have by force - it would break your mind. But Sarah," he added, his tone shifting to something a little alarming, "you don't know what you are getting yourself into. I can only protect you so far."

The fact that he'd even _want _to threw her severely off-balance - he had changed too, it seemed. "Then let me try to do it myself," she said, to cover her confusion. "Maybe I have that power of yours for a reason. Whatever that reason may be, though, I won't sit on the sidelines like some useless little girl. After all," she said, with a little twist of her lips, "that wouldn't be fair."

She'd expected him to laugh, or at least call her on her choice of words, but he did neither. He looked, somewhat disturbingly, as serious as Lydia's poltergeist had.

"This will not be a fair war," he said. "But I underestimated you once - perhaps I should not do so again. But if you would fight alongside me, you must be prepared to listen, to do what I say. You can have no comprehension of what is to come, because even _I _am uncertain."

Sarah paused, still far too aware of his hands on her shoulders. The wheels in her brain were turning fast despite the distraction of his touch and his equally disquieting proximity. "How long can you stay on Earth this time?" she asked slowly. "Before you have to go back to the Labyrinth, I mean."

"If you would agree to anchor me here, I would not need the books," he said, clearly wondering what she was thinking. "I could stay much longer than I would otherwise - perhaps a week of your time, before I must return. I can't leave the Labyrinth much longer than that. What are you thinking, Sarah?"

"The Neitherworld wants to kill Lydia because of this war," she said, even more slowly. "Her poltergeist is pretty scary determined to not let that happen. Maybe…the two of you should meet. Pool resources, ideas, that kind of thing. Lydia says he's normally pretty lazy, but I think - and you can't tell her this, it would just weird her out too much - I think that for _her _he'd do almost anything. He's…creepy-attached to her." She had absolutely no idea that she might as well have been describing Jareth himself, in relation to her. The thought of Betelgeuse and Jareth meeting creeped her out on seven different levels, but it might be useful, and Sarah was nothing if not practical. Amazing as that might seem to Jareth. "I mean, I'll have to ask her so she can ask him, but…it might help." Or end absolutely terribly, but she was willing to take that risk.

Jareth regarded her a very long while in silence. "When?" he finally said, surprising her a little; she'd expected more protest than that.

"I'll call her and ask - it's not too late. _She _can ask _him_, and if we're all on the same page, we could meet by the graveyard sometime once the moon's up." _And pray nobody sees either one of you._ An ambulatory dead guy and another guy who looked like a glam-rocker…no. Definitely did not want to have to try to explain _that_.

He seemed to consider this, and finally nodded. "Very well. Until then - be careful, Sarah."

She nodded in affirmation, and he released her shoulders, leaving her feeling unaccountably cold. Without ceremony, in the space of a blink, there was suddenly a lack of Jareth but the presence of a huge white owl, which soared off over the trees. Only now did Sarah really let herself shudder, wrapping her arms about her torso.

_What the hell have I just gotten myself into? _she wondered. Half of what she'd said had just been to bait Jareth, but she'd been quite serious in her refusal to be sidelined. She really did believe there had to be some deeper reason why she had whatever power of his she did, and…she didn't want anything to happen to the Labyrinth. Not to her friends, but not to the place itself. It had changed her, and dangerous though it was, she didn't want it gone.

She drew a deep breath and turned back to the house, wondering how Lydia - and Betelgeuse - would take her idea. Only one way to find out, she thought.

* * *

Lydia, for her part, was ready to start throwing shoes at Betelgeuse.

He'd 'helped' her with her homework, which basically amounted to pestering her whenever she got an answer wrong in math, and pelted her with suggestions for her essay on chapter two of _The Labyrinth. _Obviously he was bored out of his mind, for which she couldn't exactly blame him, but when she suggested he go out and entertain himself for a while, all his joviality had vanished in an instant.

"I'm not leaving you alone until the Maitlands have talked to Juno, Babes," he said, perching on the edge of her desk. "I don't know yet what the royals have planned, but I'm not going to go out and let something sneak in here and kill you."

His utter seriousness about the whole matter disturbed her greatly. "Are you really that worried about what they could do?" she asked. "Jeeze, Beej, I'm not exactly helpless in here, and can't you - I don't know, teach me something? No offense, but I don't want to have to entirely rely on you to make sure I don't get killed."

He regarded her with those ungodly green eyes, much too closely for her peace of mind. "Maybe," he said, "but I don't think you'd much like the consequences."

Lydia leaned back in her chair, matching his peculiar and rather unsettling stare. "What exactly are we talking, here? Both the teaching and the consequences?" She really didn't think she liked the sheer intensity with which he was looking at her, but she'd eat her own shoe rather than admit it.

"This wouldn't be small-time stuff, Lyds," he said. "I don't know that what you'd have to trade would be worth it to you."

Her eyebrows rose. "Well, I won't know until you tell me, will I?"

"I could take a piece of your soul," he said bluntly, "and give you a piece of mine. If anything really hurt you, I'd take the hurt myself - I'm dead, it's not like it can do anything to me. You'd have as much of my power as you could handle, which wouldn't be a whole lot, since you're still alive and too much of it would kill you. Which would pretty much defeat the purpose. You'd be able to defend yourself, though, to a point, but this sort of thing wouldn't be easy to handle - you'd need a lot of practice to use it right."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, quite glad she was already sitting down. "What's the catch?" she asked, knowing it had to be huge, given a deal like that.

"I'd own you, Lyds," he said quietly, still far too seriously for her liking. "Literally. Though to be fair, you'd own me, too - it's what happens when you swap even part of your soul. There's a reason the Handbook's section on making deals with the living basically says 'don't'. You can't undo a bargain like that - once you've made it, it's forever. And," he added, and here she knew he was about to relay something even worse, "you'd quit aging, you'd never get sick - but you'd also never die, unless I killed you." He was still watching her much too closely, as though trying to take her apart from the inside by sight alone.

It was almost a minute before she could dredge up a response that, and when she did it was a very quiet, "…Holy shit." That…really was an impressive set of consequences, wasn't it? She'd be immune to harm, yeah, and she'd have defensive powers beyond anything a normal human would be capable of, but she'd also literally belong to a half-crazy poltergeist who would have to _kill _her to keep her from living forever.

And yet… "Why didn't you tell me this before?" she asked, a little unevenly. "When you first told me the royals wanted me dead?"

"Would you really have believed me, Lyds?" He shook his head. "You didn't trust me and you still don't, because you're not stupid - I haven't given you any real reason to trust me. Yet."

A very good point. That was…well, hell, that was possibly the most massive decision she'd ever have to make in her life, and she wasn't about to rush into it one way or another. "…Let me think about it," she said at last, and quite obviously the fact that she even _would _think about it startled the crap out of him. "I don't want to die, Beej," she said, by way of explanation, "but that's…a hell of a lot I'd be trading." She could kiss any semblance of a normal life goodbye, but on the other hand, a 'normal' life had never been something she'd particularly craved. Office job, suit, nine-to-five then home to an apartment or little house, trapped in a routine that would never end. Even if she managed to get a job in photography, doing something she genuinely enjoyed, the fact that she saw dead people would always be a silent, invisible, isolating wall, cutting her off from people content with their prosaic lives. It was already happening - much though she liked Bertha and Prudence, there was a certain _distance _that could never be breached. Sarah was the only person who actually understood, and she had a whole catalogue of her own problems.

But then, if she took Beej up on his offer, she'd _really _never have a chance at normalcy. The fact that she saw the dead gave her a barrier, true, but if she couldn't die or even get hurt, she might as well not be human anymore. She _wouldn't _be, not really. Once upon a time she'd wished she could be special, but now, irony of ironies, as soon as she became content just being Lydia, 'special' seemed to be trying to pound her door down.

"How…would you kill me?" she asked slowly. "I mean, whenever I decided I did want to die?" She couldn't help but ask, despite the fact that she probably really didn't want to know.

He picked up one of her pencils and leaned forward, laying the edge lightly against the left side of her throat, an inch or two below her jaw. "External carotid artery," he said, very quietly. "Painless, and you'd bleed out in about three heartbeats."

Lydia went very still, wondering how the hell he knew that. It hadn't really occurred to her to wonder just what being a bio-exorcist entailed, or what on Earth it was he actually did in the Neitherworld. Shit. "Is that…what your royals would do?" she asked, staring at him with rather horrified fascination. "Cut my throat like that?"

Betelgeuse took the pencil away from her neck, but didn't lean back. "I don't know," he said. "I do know that they'd exorcise you, just to be safe."

Barbara and Adam had told her about the Lost Souls room, the place where all ghosts who had been exorcised on Earth went. She'd thought that was the only way you could get in there, though - she hadn't thought other ghosts could do it. All this sounded worse than awful, but…well, how much did she trust what he was saying? She believed he was telling the truth when he said people in the Neitherworld wanted her dead, but the rest of this…of course it was in his interest that she stay alive, and not being _able _to die would definitely ensure that.

"What's in it for you?" she asked, after a pause that seemed to stretch for hours. "Would you not need me to say your name three times to get out into this world?"

He snorted. "Nothing can lift my name curse, Lyds. I'll always need someone to call me out."

So it wouldn't get him out for good, not on its own. Huh. "So - I guess my next question is, would you actually kill me when I asked you to? You wouldn't make me stay alive just because it's more convenient for you?"

He looked away. "That's asking a lot of me, Lyds," he said. "But if we have a contract, I have to."

Why the hell was she even _considering _this? It was insane - it was a horrible idea, but it was also…well, really fascinated, in a gruesome sort of way. "Has anyone - ever done this before?"

"I wouldn't try it on you if it hadn't already been done," he said, sounding a little insulted.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. This was idiotic and crazy and might well be the worst mistake she would ever make, but - well, if this war or whatever it was _did _spill over here, she was damned if she'd be helpless. "I don't actually have to marry you, do I?"

He gave her a slightly crooked grin. "No," he said. "This kind of binding - it wouldn't keep you from being able to put me back, but if you didn't I could stay out as long as I wanted. Nobody else could send me back."

She looked up at the ceiling, turning the whole idea over in her mind. If she didn't do it now she'd chicken out, and something told her if she refused she would really, really regret it.

"Okay," she said, looking back at him.

Betelgeuse stared at her, clearly floored she'd actually said yes. "You realize this is for eternity, right, Babes?"

"I don't know what's going to happen with this war, or whatever it is," she said steadily, "but I don't want it to kill me. I don't want to always be afraid something from the Neitherworld will, either. I'm not a hiding kind of person, Beej, and I'd _have _to hide."

She held his gaze, daring him to look away first, somewhat startled at her resolve to go forward with this lunacy. Finally he shook his head, and gave her another half-smile. "I hope you don't regret this, Babes," he said, standing up. "C'mere."

Lydia hoped she wouldn't, either. Intuition was all well and good, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little afraid, and she tried not to let it show when she stood, too. "How does this work?" she asked, somehow keeping most of the nervousness out of her voice. _Is it going to hurt? _

"Only a little," he said, apparently reading her mind. "And you can't hit me with a book just because I'm touching you, either."

She rolled her eyes, but took a small step toward him anyway, very carefully _not _thinking about the two earlier nights. This was too big a decision for distractions, anyway, dammit.

"Not quite close enough, Lyds," he said, with a real grin this time, hooking his arm around her waist and pulling her to him so quickly it actually took her a moment to be startled. "This is the part where you remember you promised not to smack me," he added, pulling aside the collar of her shirt and laying his cold hand directly over her heart. "This is gonna be like getting a shot - don't think about it and it won't hurt so bad."

Of course now she couldn't _help_ thinking about it, wondering if it was too late to give up and wuss out. But she _wouldn't_, dammit, she wasn't going to let fear of pain - even a little, whatever 'a little' was in Betelgeuse's book - stop her doing something that might save her life if it came down to it. She wasn't going to count on anyone else to save her if she didn't have to.

"You're still thinking about it, Babes," he said, with that disturbing little smile.

"Well, shit, of course I am," she said, wondering why the hell the feel of his cold dead hand was as…not-unpleasant as it was. "You might know what you're doing, but _I _don't."

"True," he admitted. "Well, if you _really _need me to distract you-"

Once again it took a moment for her brain to catch up, but when it had she realized rather belatedly that he was kissing her. God, was he _ever _kissing her, and it threw her so far off-balance she didn't try to stop him - nor, after a moment, could she keep herself from returning it, grabbing the front of his jacket in an attempt to stay on her feet. He took advantage of her startled gasp to deepen it, and she could feel him smirk when her back arched without bothering to ask her permission.

She bit his lip, a little too hard, when brief but agonizing pain stabbed through her chest like an ice axe. She _did _stumble then, her knees threatening to give way, but the arm at her waist kept her upright. After a few fractions of a second the pain was gone, though a faint sense of cold lingered just above her heart.

"Beej," she said, trying to catch her breath before he kissed her again. "Um, Beej, you can stop now." While she still had use of her brain, preferably.

"You sure?" he said, with a truly, obnoxiously wicked grin.

"_Yes_, Beej." She glared at him a little, and he grudgingly released her.

"Right words, wrong tone," he muttered, and she almost hit him with her math book.

"That was cheating," she said, touching the little cold patch on her skin, feeling her heart flutter like a butterfly beneath her fingers. "You promised you'd behave yourself."

"Distracted you, didn't it?" he said, not bothering to hide his leer when he stole her desk chair. She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him on the grounds that he would certainly ask if it was an invitation.

"Pervert," she said, shaking her head. "You stole my chair." She was feeling decidedly…weird. It wasn't just the little chilly patch above her heart, it was…_all _of her, her skin tingling faintly like a limb that had fallen asleep and was just now waking up. It too was a chilly feeling, but not unpleasantly so - it made her feel, ironically, even more alive.

Betelgeuse raised an eyebrow. "I'm willing to share," he said, and now she _did _throw something at him - only a pencil box, but it hit him square in the chest.

"I don't think so," she said, sitting on her desk instead and inspecting her hand, as though she actually thought it ought to look different. Gingerly she rubbed her fingers together, and was startled when something very much like static electricity zapped her, a momentary arc of blue. "Um," she said faintly. "Beej, what the hell?"

He swung his feet with their dusty boots up onto her desk. "I told you it wouldn't be easy to handle at first," he said. "You won't make anything explode, but you might blow out a few light bulbs. Your body's got its own natural limitations - it won't let anything fuck you over."

Lydia wasn't entirely sure that was precisely encouraging. "What can I do with it, exactly? Aside from blow out light bulbs."

His expression was unreadable when he regarded her with those impossibly green eyes. "Cut yourself," he said, tossing her compass across the desk. "Or stab your hand, anything like that."

She eyed him back, wondering if he was joking and eventually deciding he wasn't. With a slight grimace, she drew the sharp pointed end of the compass across the back of her hand, and was surprised to find it didn't hurt nearly so much as it ought to. It _did _hurt, in a way, but not with the sharp insistence such a thing should have produced. Blood immediately welled through the split skin, but stopped a few seconds later, coagulating into a thick, dark scab.

"…Wow," she said, looking closely at it. "It doesn't even hurt now."

Betelgeuse caught her fingers, drawing her hand toward him, and wiped at the scab with a handkerchief that probably hadn't been washed since before Lydia was born. It came away with a rather sickening rip, but beneath it was smooth skin, marred only by the barest trace of a white scar. "That ought to fade pretty soon," he said, running his thumb over it, and she tried not to shiver. "The worse the injury, the longer it'll take to heal, but it always will. Something could gut you and you wouldn't die."

"Nice mental image, Beej," she said, making a face. "So I can heal and I'm a static-magnet - what else?" She'd been right - this was most definitely fascinating, even if the sheer enormity of what she'd just done hadn't even come close to hitting her yet. That would happen later, probably at three o'clock in the morning, and leave her twitching with doubt.

He stood, tightening his grip on her hand and pulling her off the desk. "You should be able to feel things a little like I do," he said, twirling her like a dancer until her back was against his chest. "See them, hear them - you're a breather, your brain's limiting your own perception."

Her eyes narrowed when he laced his fingers through hers. "You're just looking for an excuse to feel me up without breaking your promise, aren't you?" she asked, trying not to jump at the downright peculiar feel of his hand against hers.

"Well, not _just_," he said into the top of her hair, and she could _hear _him grinning. "Not gonna lie to you, Babes, I'm not minding this at all."

Neither was she, though she wasn't about to say so even if it meant it would keep the sky from falling. Stupid pervy poltergeists, and stupid her for not caring.

"Shut your eyes," he said, as soon as he'd made her as uncomfortable as it was possible for her to be.

"…Why?" she asked warily.

"Because your eyes lie to you, Babes." He laid his other hand over her eyes, and she wondered when he last washed it. She was probably better off not knowing. "Now just stand still."

She did, feeling a little idiotic, but after a few moments of darkness she realized she could hear all sorts of things - the faint ticking of her watch, the slight scrabbling of night animals _outside _- even her heartbeat was loud in her ears.

"What the-?" she whispered.

"It gets better, Lyds." He took the hand that held hers and ran her fingers along the wood of her desk, and her fingertips picked up every line of the grain, every tiny irregularity in the surface.

"Now your eyes." He led her to the window and took his hand away, and the distant moon seemed to sear itself into the back of her retinas. She winced, squinting, but after a moment her vision adjusted, and she realized she could not only see the moon, but the aura of energy around it.

"Holy shit," she whispered, turning to face him. "Is this - how you see all the time?"

His own eyes seemed greener with this new sight of hers, a little too much so. "'Course, Babes. I'm dead - don't need any nerves to see or hear or, uh, feel." He still hadn't released her hand, and almost seemed unaware of what he was doing when he ran his thumb along her wrist. It felt…_weird_, but definitely not bad….

The phone jangled, making her jump, and after a moment her father's voice floated up from downstairs. "Lydia, Sarah's on the phone."

"Okay," she called back, her voice a little strangled, and pulled her hand away.

"Better let me get this one, Babes," Betelgeuse said. "Dunno what you might do to your phone if you picked it up now."

She wasn't sure she liked the idea of that, but he grabbed it before she could protest. "Lydia's Den of Iniquity," he said, ignoring her choked cry of outrage as she followed him. "No, she can't touch her phone right now, she might short it out."

Sarah's voice, tinny and uncertain, was quite audible to Lydia's suddenly-sensitive ears. "Um…okay. I wanted to ask her a question - both you guys, I guess."

"Go ahead," he said, waving a hand at Lydia.

"Uh, I talked to Jareth - the Goblin King - and he…I…yeah, I thought maybe we should all meet. He knows a little more about this war, or whatever it is, and…it might be a bad idea but I think it's actually a good one." A rather garbled speech - she had to be more nervous than Lydia had ever heard her.

"Ask her when," she murmured. "And where."

"Getting to it, Babes," he said, and did.

"Near the graveyard - I told him sometime after the moon was up, so whenever you can. Will, uh, will you?"

"Weeell, I don't know, I was kind of enjoying myself here-"

"_Beej_. Of course we will!" Lydia said, overriding him. "We'll be there as soon as we can." She glared at Betelgeuse, daring him to comment. All he did was smirk at her.

"…Okay. See you soon, I guess. Um. Bye."

"You really are horrible," Lydia said, when the receiver went down on Sarah's end. "She sounds freaked out enough already. God, I don't know if this is a good idea…."

"Says the girl who just traded away part of her soul," he mused, and she smacked him. That might be going to come back and haunt her later, but she couldn't let it right now. "Just…ugh, the thought of the two of you in the same place is enough to give me a migraine." She grabbed her coat, grateful for the warm swath of fabric.

"You can't get those anymore," Betelgeuse said, when she opened the window and swung herself over the sill. "No headaches, no colds - no excuse to stay home from school."

She paused. "Dad and Delia don't need to know that," she said at last. "The Maitlands don't need to know about any of this either, yet, so don't tell them." She'd think of some way to explain it, surely…if it had sounded like a stupid idea to her, it would seem completely lunatic to anyone else, but it wasn't like they could talk her out of it now.

"I think I'll leave that to you, Babes," he said, watching her descend the side of the house with what she considered to be far too much amusement. "You gonna take all night getting down there?"

Only Betelgeuse, she reflected, could make innocent conversation sound ridiculously dirty. She scowled at him, but after a moment her expression turned thoughtful. "If I just let go, what would it do to me?"

"You'd drop," he said, arching an eyebrow, and did not need to add '_duh_'.

"I _meant _would it hurt me?" She had to move or let go soon; her fingers were going numb.

"It wouldn't kill you. Here, try it and find out." He leaned out the window to unhook her fingers, and she plummeted to the lawn below with a stifled, strangled shriek.

"_Ow_," she said, staring at her wrist, which _looked _broken even if it didn't hurt like it should. "You _asshole._" She tried to kick him when he landed next to her, which is next to impossible when one is sitting down, and winced when something went _click _in her ankle.

Betelgeuse laughed. "Well, you _did _ask," he said, kneeling beside her. "Probably be a few minutes before you can walk again, though." He picked her up and she tried to smack him again, outraged and more than a little embarrassed.

"I'd kill you if you weren't already dead," she muttered. "Try to grope me one more time and I might try anyway."

"That's the spirit, Lyds." Surprisingly, though, he was staying more or less true to his word and wasn't actively feeling her up. Which was just as well, since her peculiar quasi-heightened senses were having a hard enough time processing everything. The air was cold but for once it didn't bother her, the stars almost intolerably bright-this must be a little like being on acid, she thought, sans hallucinations. It was still a little unsettling being so close to someone with no body heat, but, perhaps dangerously, she was getting used to it. Betelgeuse was still a sneaky bastard; she'd have to try to guard against that as much as she was able, no matter what bizarre gifts/curses he gave her.

Halfway there she said, "Put me down. I want to see what walking is like. Even if it hurts." She felt a little like a child first discovering the world.

Somewhat to her surprise, he actually did as she asked. Her ankle was sore, but definitely not broken, and she tested it with fascination. This warranted all kinds of testing, if she could bring herself to do it.

"You gonna fall over?" he asked, still holding her arm.

"I don't think so." And indeed she barely limped as they made their way through the dark trees. She was starting to really, really question the wisdom of this, given Betelgeuse's ability to annoy absolutely anyone, but Sarah had suggested it, and Sarah presumably knew, at least a little, how her Goblin King might react to Beej. What Lydia couldn't be so sure of was how Beej would react to _him._

The trees opened onto the graveyard, rendered silver in the moonlight, and there, as promised, were Sarah and Jareth. Lydia regarded him appraisingly - he didn't seem much taller than Beej, and his blonde hair was just as wild, but his face was that of a fallen angel. He wore some kind of black, high-collared coat or cloak, and Lydia didn't wonder why Sarah stood a little apart, and looked slightly uncomfortable. The man - or whatever he was - radiated a kind of disturbing sensuality like a sun. It was only Betelgeuse, who still held her arm, that kept her going.

"Uh, hi," she said, mostly to Sarah.

"Hi," her friend returned, and Lydia wondered how the hell she was keeping her voice so steady when she stood so close to the guy. "Jareth, this is Lydia and Be - uh, Beej."

"You can say my name, Sarah," Betelgeuse said, a little smugly. "It won't send me back now unless Lyds here says it."

"What in the name of all the gods that ever were did you _do _to that girl?" Jareth asked, without preamble. His mismatched eyes seemed to nail Lydia where she stood, but damn if she wouldn't be equal to it - she stared right back, unaware of just how intense her black eyes were.

"She said she didn't want to have to count on me to protect her," Betelgeuse said, more smugly still. "I just made it so she didn't have to."

Jareth moved toward her, circling them both. "I hope you know what sort of bargain you've struck, child," he said, and Lydia tried not to glower at him. Sure, she was short, but she was just as old as Sarah.

"Believe me, I do," she muttered. "This isn't the first time I've dealt with Beej here." Somehow, his hand on her arm steadied her against this regard that was far too close for comfort.

"So what the hell's up with this war of yours?" Betelgeuse said bluntly. "I never even heard of your Labyrinth or this other place before, and I've been around a while."

Jareth's lip curled in distaste. "I had never heard of the Legendverse, either, nor of your Neitherworld. Our realms are meant to be separate, I think, but one of the creatures of the Legendverse clearly thinks otherwise. I know relatively little of him, save that he's a creature unlike anything I have ever encountered. Then again," he added, now fixing Betelgeuse with that gimlet stare, "so are you."

"Makes two of us." He still hadn't actually released Lydia's arm, and she wasn't sure whether or not she wanted him to. Given her newly-acquired senses, Jareth was a little more distracting than he should be, but on the other hand…so was everything else. The moonlight. The faint breeze. The bizarre sheen on the few marble headstones. She was having a hell of a time concentrating on _anything_, which was quite unfortunate, really. "I dunno how anyone in the Neitherworld even knows about any of this, since it's not there yet-or even _here_." He pulled a cigarette out of his coat, his eyes flicking to Sarah, who had sat down on one of the headstones and was watching them all with an expression of intense curiosity.

"So here's the deal," he said, finally releasing Lydia's arm. "Neitherworld's only worried because Lyds here knows Sarah, who knows you, and they're apparently a bunch of fucking paranoid pansies who'll actually lose sleep about a connection that weak. What're the odds of it actually even getting here?"

For the first time, Jareth looked discomfited. "I don't know," he admitted. "Better than I think any of us would like. I still know far too little about this Darkness creature, save that he's unfortunately powerful. Without Sarah I can't hold him at bay forever."

Lydia cast a startled look at her friend, and edged away from Betelgeuse, abandoning him and Jareth to one another. "What the hell is he talking about?" she asked. Sarah shook her head.

"Tell you later."

"If it goes through your world, it might hit this one, and I don't want this one fucked with. Not when I've finally got a way to stay out, as long as I don't piss Lyds over there off too much. Maybe you and Sarah need a few more allies."

Lydia nearly choked. "Beej, are you actually _volunteering _for something?" she said, incredulous.

"It's been known to happen," he returned, a little annoyed.

"I doubt _that_," she muttered.

"If this world goes down the shitter there'll be no point in my getting into it. The royals are pussies and the rest of the Neitherworld's too lazy."

He had a point. Scarily.

Jareth was looking at him very thoughtfully. "I don't know how well Sarah and I can do this alone," he said, after a long pause. "I loathe the idea, but if you're offering help I can hardly refuse."

What was Beej getting himself into? Correction, what was he getting _them _into? She'd never dreamed he'd actually offer to _help. And thanks for consulting me, by the way. _Though even if he had, she'd have said yes anyway, but still. It was the principle of the thing.

"I guess I am, yeah," Betelgeuse said, sounding a little surprised at himself. "I think it's worth getting off my ass for."

Lydia rubbed her temples. "Well," she said to Sarah, "at least this ought to be interesting. Even if it probably won't end well."

"No kidding," Sarah muttered. The idea of Jareth and Betelgeuse teaming up was downright terrifying. Lydia almost felt sorry for this Darkness character - _she _certainly wouldn't want to face both of them. Good grief.

"Sarah and I must return to the Labyrinth for a time," Jareth said. "If you have any resources in the Neitherworld, it would be well to gather them now."

"Oh, I've got all sorts've tricks," Betelgeuse grinned, and Lydia was pretty sure she didn't want to know what that meant.

"Not to break this up or anything, but we've got school tomorrow," Lydia said. "We'll just, um, leave you two to it." She glanced at Sarah and shook her head, hoping they weren't going to completely regret all of this.

"Yeah, we do," Sarah added. "We'll have to talk to you later." She made a beeline for her bike, clearly wanting the hell out of there, and when Lydia started off for the trees she was glad her ankle seemed to have entirely healed itself.

"Nah, wait up, Lyds." She tried not to wince when Betelgeuse followed her. "I need to talk to you."

"Oh great," she murmured. "What the hell did you just volunteer us for?" she added, once they were out of earshot. "I have to keep this secret from my parents somehow - Sarah does, too, and that's not going to be easy if you offer something that blatant."

He caught up to her easily, walking beside her through the shadows. "Babes, parents are about to be the least of your worries," he said. "For both of you. I still want to talk to the woman who wrote that book, if we can find her in the Neitherworld. I want another opinion about that Labyrinth, and she might be the only other person who's ever been there."

Lydia paused. "What do you mean, if 'we' can find her?"

His grin in the darkness was like a Cheshire cat, green eyes almost glowing. "You can go to the Neitherworld too now, Babes. All part of the package. I don't see why you think you still have to go to school, but once you're out we can go find her ourselves."

She stared at him, dumbfounded, and he laughed - no, he _cackled._ "C'mon, Lyds, you need your beauty sleep. You're still human enough for that."

She really _was _tired. "Okay," she said. "But stay out of my dreams tonight, you hear me? I - yeah." Those were something she'd very gladly forget, especially if she was going to be stuck so often in the poltergeist's presence. Thank God it was so dark it didn't matter how red her face turned.

"I've got your reality now," he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "You can have your dreams."

"Creep." She shrugged off his arm and scowled, grateful for a chance to be irritated at him. She didn't say anything more, even when he followed her on her climb back up into her room. "You are so not staying here tonight, either."

He tried to look hurt, and mostly failed. "I'm sure I can find something else to do," he said, watching her while she turned on her lamp and rubbed her eyes. "I won't kill anyone, I promise."

"You'd better not. Now out, I need a shower." She grabbed a bathrobe and some towels from her closet, and almost elbowed him when he followed her. "_Out._"

"Fine, fine. You don't know what you're missing, Babes." Lydia didn't even have to look at him; she could _feel _him leering at her.

"And I'm perfectly happy not finding out," she said, pausing at the bathroom door. "Good _night_, Beej." And before he could reply she'd shut the door in his face.

* * *

A/N: Poor Lydia and Sarah…things will get fun for them soon enough. XD Next chapter has both Beej and Jareth POV's, God help everyone.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: God I'm sorry it took me so long to update. My computer crashed months ago, and I've spent most of the time since then trying to piece back together my original writing. Hopefully now I can actually update in something like a timely manner.

* * *

Since Sarah quite obviously didn't want him to follow her, Jareth chose instead to tail the other two, owl-formed.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of either of them. He could hear them bickering in the trees below, while he soared the silvery darkness. Those of his own kind he was used to, even if he didn't much care for them, but this Betelgeuse…creature…was something else entirely. Jareth had him pegged as conniving but very lazy, and had been as surprised as the girl Lydia when he'd offered to help.

That girl. Jareth was too keenly aware of his own weakness to miss it in anyone else. The poltergeist might say - might even believe - he was only doing this to avoid later inconvenience, but Jareth damn well knew better. That girl had him wrapped around her finger as thoroughly - and unwittingly - as Sarah did him. The only difference was that he at least _realized_ it, even if he didn't want to admit it. He hadn't been quite truthful with Sarah; he could have yanked his power back out of her head with far less effort than he'd implied, but it really would destroy her mind, and he would never do it. Never.

What that _Betelgeuse _had done, though…he'd never seen quite such a thing before, but Jareth was no fool. What the poltergeist had given Lydia was irreversible; he couldn't take it back if he wanted to, and while it gave him immense power over her, it also gave her far more over him than she likely realized. Even Jareth had never bound anyone to himself like that, because such a binding by necessity worked both ways, and until Sarah he'd never even considered yoking himself to someone like that for eternity.

Sarah. She'd grown up, yes, physically and mentally, but there was a hardness, a ruthlessness to her that had only been hinted at when he'd seen her last. That she'd had the audacity to dictate terms to _him _of all people…he'd taught her well, without realizing it or even meaning to do so. Damn her for having so much power over him, but it was his own fault.

He left the pair when they climbed up through Lydia's window, and soared off to check on Sarah's house. Her light was still on when he got there-she likely wouldn't sleep much tonight.

* * *

When they'd climbed back up the trellis, Lydia momentarily disappeared into the hallway, and returned with one of her father's bathrobes.

"You," she said firmly, "need a shower. I don't want you dumping grave-dirt all over my room. And," she added, holding up a finger, "I don't want to hear it. No innuendos, no double-entendres, none of it. You're going to take a shower and I'm going to wash your clothes, and that's the end of it."

Betelgeuse looked at her. There was something almost absurd about being ordered around by a girl nearly a foot shorter than him, but the glint in her dark eyes told him protesting would get him nowhere. Muttering darkly about breathers and their damn hygiene, he took the robe and marched grimly into the bathroom, tossing his filthy suit out a moment later. Lydia gathered it up in a pile of her own clothes and tiptoed to the washing machine-fortunately, doing laundry so late at night wouldn't seem out of the ordinary for her, if her parents even noticed. In it all went, along with a generous dash of detergent, and without regard to the drop in hot water it would make she turned the machine on.

Now that she had time to properly think, she was wondering if she hadn't made a very grave mistake. The cold patch over her heart hadn't gone away, and the full implications of what she'd done were finally settling in in earnest. How the hell was she to explain this to her parents - to the Maitlands? She'd have to sooner or later, though she planned on putting it off as long as she could.,

And then there was this war…thing…whatever. From the sound of it she couldn't keep _that _a secret forever, either, especially if they all had to go to the Labyrinth or something. She'd have to come up with some excuse for ditching school, for one thing, and it was unlikely she could pull off any long-term lie to the Maitlands. (Her parents were another story - they might well buy _anything_.)

And meanwhile Betelgeuse seemed determined to stick to her like glue. Lydia was a very private person, and the thought of having that privacy so intruded upon made her shudder. Hopefully now that she had this immortality or whatever it was, he'd leave her _alone _a little. Though she wasn't holding her breath.

She grabbed an unused toothbrush from the drawer in the main bathroom and went back to her room, where she found a remarkably clean poltergeist lounging in her desk chair, swathed in blue terrycloth. His hair was wild as ever, but he actually seemed to have got rid of all the grime. He still didn't actually look _alive_, but at least he was clean-well, no, he might have passed for a heroin addict, she thought, he'd grown so emaciated in the last year. She wondered why, but didn't know how to ask.

"So what's with this Darkness thing?" she asked instead, sitting cross-legged on her bed. He'd said he didn't know, but he was also a compulsive liar.

"I really honestly have no idea. Nothing connected to the Neitherworld-I'd know if it was. They know about the Goblin King guy, at least, and they're afraid of him. And if he's worried about this Darkness, it has to be bad."

"I still can't believe you offered to help," Lydia said, shaking her head.

He cracked all his knuckles. "Self-interest, Babes. Pure self-interest. Like I said, if anything happens to this world there's no point in me trying to get back to it. Besides, this Darkness guy sounds like an asshole, and _I'm _King Asshole around here."

That actually made her giggle. "You've got that right," she said. "God, I'm going to be dead tired at school tomorrow."

"You don't really need to sleep anymore," he said. "Though you probably will a while anyway, out of habit. You're only tired because your brain says you should be."

"My brain says I'm exhausted," she said, yawning, though she was also regarding him a little more closely than he was comfortable with. He didn't know that she was truly wondering for the first time how old he'd been when he died. Without all the grime, she'd peg him as somewhere in his mid-thirties or so-if he'd really been dead as long as he'd said he had, he would have been verging on old for that time.

"How did you die?" she asked suddenly. If he'd once been Juno's assistant, it had to have been suicide, but unlike what the Maitlands had said of the rest of the dead, his cause of death wasn't immediately obvious.

He pushed back his sleeves and held out his arms. A long, jagged cut ran up each, from wrist to elbow, and she winced. "Sweating sickness was going around," he said. "Mid-1400's. Nasty way to die, so I figured I'd check out early. Lot of people thought it was the end of the world, so I thought I'd just beat the rush."

"Didn't people think that was a mortal sin, though? I mean, how did you know you wouldn't wind up in hell?"

"Hell couldn't've been worse than the world, at that point. Trust me. 'Course if I'd known where I'd end up, I would have just let the disease get me. _Paperwork_," he said, shuddering. "I had no idea what that was - couldn't even read when I was alive. Shitty way to have to learn, being Juno's assistant."

Lydia winced. "Where did you live?"

"England. Good old Henry the VIII, who wanted to wreck the country just so he could bone Anne Boleyn."

"You don't _sound _English," she said dubiously.

"Plenty of time to change your accent when you're dead," he said, with a toothy grin. "I sounded like a twit."

It was so bizarre, thinking of Betelgeuse ever having been alive, but at least now she could picture it. She was intensely curious about what his life had been like, but she didn't want to ask for the whole story at once. Especially since pretty soon she was going to have to shift the laundry. She'd pry more out of him later, when they had time.

Sarah, who was after all still completely human, was more than exhausted, but she wasn't to find sleep right away. Instead she lay long awake, staring at the square of moonlight that splashed across the ceiling.

Lydia wasn't the only one who was going to have some very awkward explaining to do. She knew her parents weren't going to believe her word alone, which meant she was going to have to drag _Jareth_ into it, God help her. While the thought of her stepmother's reaction to the Goblin King was an undeniably amusing one, it didn't make up for how terrible it was sure to be. Her parents would likely only see that some British guy twice her age wanted to kidnap her, and _that_…was not going to go over well. At all. Even the thought made her twitch.

* * *

Like Lydia and Betelgeuse, Sarah didn't know what to make of this Darkness business. The fact that it made Jareth nervous made _her _nervous, and made her wonder if her insistence at getting involved was such a great idea after all. It had been a knee-jerk reaction, a refusal to be outdone, and something told her she was going to regret it sooner or later.

She really didn't want him back in her life. Oh, she'd thought about him on and off - more than she'd ever admit, even to herself - but that didn't mean she wanted to _see _him. Things were complicated enough as it was, just now, and the last thing she needed was Jareth tossing even more spanners in the works. Jareth and Lydia's poltergeist - and Sarah couldn't help but think of him as that, as some kind of property of her friend - and this Darkness, whoever or whatever that was. Like it or not, though, it looked like she was stuck, and was simply going to have to find some way of dealing with it. If only she didn't have bloody school to deal with, on top of everything else.

Eventually, around one in the morning, sleep managed to find her, and she drifted on uneasy dreams.

* * *

Both girls were obviously exhausted the next day - Sarah rather more so than Lydia, who more often than not had some level of shadow under her eyes. She was no paler than usual, but Sarah's complexion was so ashen even Mrs. Scarpello thought she should go see the nurse, and Mrs. Scarpello was not the kind of teacher to make that kind of decision lightly.

"I'm fine," Sarah insisted, stifling a yawn. And she was, more or less, though she wouldn't have left the class alone with those books for anything short of lockjaw. She didn't care what Jareth said; she wasn't nearly stupid enough to trust his word entirely.

Lydia, on the other hand, was on some level thrumming with energy in spite of her weariness. Watching the sunrise had been an experience unlike anything she'd ever seen, but she'd scrambled to eat and get out of the house as fast as she could, wanting to evade the Maitlands for now - Adam and Barbara would almost certainly be able to tell something had happened to her, even if they might not know what.

The change in her vision was… even more amazing during the day, subtle yet all-encompassing. Even in daylight she could see the subtle shimmer of heat-waves rising from all the students around her, pick up each and every detail of her scarred desk, but it was more than just that. Her entire awareness was still shifting, her spatial sense extended around her like a tangible aura, and when Claire lobbed a pencil at her her hand shot out and caught it without her needing to look up from her book. Nor did she have to look to send it flying back to its owner with such accuracy it stuck in Claire's frizzy perm.

Sarah snorted beside her before she could help herself, hastily turning the noise into a hacking cough as Mrs. Scarpello turned to her. Lydia, still ostensibly absorbed by her book, only smiled, a strange and incredibly unsettling smile that made the girl on her other side edge away.

They made it through English without any further incident, and at lunch both Lydia and Sarah took up residence on the fence between their school and the boys', joined by Bertha and Prudence. Both girls eyed Lydia almost uneasily, though neither said a thing, and she wondered if they could somehow sense whatever weird difference the thing Betelgeuse had given her wrought in her. It wouldn't at all surprise her.

She was halfway through her sandwich when a clearly irate Claire approached, flanked by a whole herd of her minions. Lydia fought a sigh, though she took a certain vindictive satisfaction in noticing just how many split ends Claire had - the sight made her smile again, a smile even creepier than before, and Tiffany, who was by far the brightest of Claire's herd, faltered uncertainly.

"You think you're hot shit, don't you, Deetz?" Claire snapped, halting about two feet from Lydia. As usual she had on far too much makeup, heavy on the eyeliner with hot pink lipstick, gold chandelier earrings tinkling every time she moved her head. The school had fairly strict rules against modifying uniforms, but Claire had pushed that rule as far as she could, replacing the plain white buttons of her blouse with ones that were faintly iridescent (Sarah had to privately admit she actually kind of liked those) and had a heavy gold necklace that reminded Sarah so sharply of Mr. T that it was all she could do to choke back a laugh.

"I don't think I'm feces of any temperature," Lydia said dryly, and Sarah _did _laugh then, unable to help herself. Claire glared at her, then swiveled that glare to Tiffany when she giggled, too.

"Funny," Claire snapped, and both Lydia and Sarah were willing to bet she didn't even know what feces meant. "You're pushing it, Deetz."

Lydia set aside her apple and fixed Claire with a Look fully deserving of a capital L. It wasn't threatening - merely impassive, but that was somehow worse, and the force of it pierced even Claire's obliviousness. "What are you going to _do _about it?" she said, quite calm. "It's not like you'd be willing to break a nail to hit me. Go fix your lipstick or something."

Even Bertha and Prudence, who normally tried to stay as far under Claire's radar as they could, giggled at that, and her eyes narrowed. Before any of them could blink, her (naturally perfectly manicured) hand shot out and grabbed a handful of Lydia's black hair, but before she could so much as tug Lydia slapped her so hard it literally knocked her off her feet, surprise breaking her grip. One of her herd let out a surprised squeak, but Claire stared at her, momentarily too shocked that the little freak had dared laid a hand on her to move. After a few moments her brain caught up with events and she leapt to her feet, but the expression in Lydia's dark eyes momentarily halted her.

"I wouldn't, Claire," Lydia said, almost mildly. "I really, really wouldn't. I wouldn't snitch, either, if I were you. You know what they say - 'snitches get stitches'."

Claire's glare could have blistered paint, but the mark of Lydia's hand stood so red on her face that it was surely going to bruise later, and it seemed even she was bright enough to concede it - temporarily, at least. "I'll see you after school, Deetz," she snapped, before turning on her heel and stalking off.

"I'm sure you will," Lydia muttered, as the rest of Claire's retinue followed her. Only Tiffany hesitated, casting Lydia a look more uneasy than ever before leaving herself. Lydia thought she knew why, too - she'd never hit anyone in her life, and given how small she was she simply shouldn't have been able to hit Claire that hard. Claire had a good six inches and probably fifteen pounds on her, but she'd gone sprawling nonetheless.

"You think she'll rat you out?" Sarah asked, watching the girls retreat. Bertha and Prudence both looked somewhat appalled, but Sarah could only grin.

Lydia shook her head. "She'll just try to get someone to jump me after school, I bet," she said. "If she can find anybody willing to risk their makeup. She's so vain I don't think she'd ever try to really go after me herself. Just watch - she'll cake her foundation on so thick you won't be able to tell I slapped her."

"I can't believe you did that," Prudence giggled nervously.

"It was that or let her yank out half my hair," Lydia said, shaking her head again. "Claire needs to learn she's not in charge just because she's _popular_." The scorn she infused in that last word practically defied description. "She's only popular because she's rich - I don't think even her so-called friends actually _like _her."

"Tiffany seems different from the rest of them," Sarah observed. "She's not so…vapid."

"She's only been here a year," Bertha said. "She didn't grow up around Claire. She's pretty rich, so of course Claire wanted her in her group, but you're right - she's not so vapid. Perfect description for Claire."

"If Claire's not careful, I think something really nasty's going to happen to her sooner or later," Sarah said thoughtfully, and even Lydia looked at her a little strangely. "What? _I'm_ not going to do it, but karma has a way of catching up to people."

The bell rang before anyone could question that, and they four trudged through the drifts of crunchy leaves, headed for Science. Lydia wasn't that fond of Science, especially since the teacher had never quite forgiven her for refusing to dissect a frog, but at least today it offered the entertainment value of watching Claire fume. It seemed she really hadn't snitched, for no teacher pulled Lydia aside to lecture her, and Claire had indeed caked on her foundation to the point that her face looked more like a mask than anything human. She probably really would send someone after Lydia after school - someone from the boys' school, if she couldn't get any of the girls to do it - but Lydia really doubted any of the boys would take her up on that offer, even if Claire probably had made out with half of them. Some of them could be real assholes, but Lydia doubted any would actually hit a girl. Which was almost a pity; she wasn't even remotely a violent person, but some morbid part of her half wanted to see what would happen now if she did hit someone again.

She shook her head as she took out her book - she'd been around Betelgeuse too long already. She'd really have to be careful not to let him become too negative an influence on her, not in the ways that really mattered to her. Her principles were her principles, and letting go of them would be…bad. Even at seventeen she was far more aware of that than most adults. While she was still fascinated by the gruesome, she didn't want to become the kind of person who created gruesome things, because if she did she wouldn't be _Lydia _anymore. She might not be properly human now, but she'd be damned if she'd let that change who she was.

* * *

Lydia had been right - Claire did indeed try to waylay her leaving school. Sarah wasn't at all surprised, either; having gone to a much larger high school, she'd seen more than one grudge of the sort Claire held against her small friend. Anger had twisted the girl's normally pretty face into something downright ugly, anger almost more at being embarrassed than physically struck. She was trying to save face now, which meant she might well try acts of stupidity she normally wouldn't - even if it did mean breaking a nail. Most of her herd was with her, but Sarah also wasn't surprised to see that Tiffany wasn't among their number, and she wondered what excuse the girl had given to beg off from this one.

Lydia made no attempt to outrun them on her bike, so Sarah didn't, either - this was something that simply had to be got out of the way, she knew, and if she had to weigh in herself, she would. A lot of adults operated on the mistaken belief that girls didn't fight, not physically, but Claire and her cronies practically looked out for blood.

As she'd suspected they would, most of the girls ignored her as they closed in on Lydia - their first mistake, Sarah thought; you never ignored your target's companions, however few of them there might be. Apparently Claire thought there was safety in numbers, for she had five others with her. _Probably thinks there's less chance of breaking a nail if she's got minions_, Sarah thought, and snorted before she could help it.

Lydia glanced at her, and her thoughts must have been running along the same vein, for she smiled, and Claire's glare intensified.

"What's so fucking funny?" she demanded, halting a few feet away.

"You," Lydia returned. "God, you're dumb." Her dark eyes danced with amusement in her white face, and Sarah watched the exchange with a little more curiosity than was entirely warranted. "I'd rather not have to fight you, Claire."

Claire apparently mistook that for cowardice, for she sneered. "You hit me first," she said, probably unaware how childish she sounded. "Nobody fucks with me, Deetz."

"Not if you ask the guys," Lydia muttered, and Sarah snorted again, earning a glare of her own. "Doesn't it ever bother you, being a total slut?"

Claire's face went white under all the caked layers of her makeup - not with shock, but with complete rage. "At least I'm not a lesbian," she shot back, shooting another glare at Sarah, and now it was Lydia who snorted.

"Seriously? Is that really the best you can do?" she asked, leaning forward on her handlebars. "Probably the best I can expect from someone with only three brain cells, I guess."

The other girls were watching with somewhat horrified fascination, and Sarah would bet her left shoe nobody had ever dared talk to Queen Claire like that before. _This _was bound to be entertaining, whatever else it was, and sure enough Claire launched herself at Lydia with a screech, concern for hair and nails apparently forgotten. This time Lydia didn't hit her, though - she just stuck out one booted foot and let Claire trip herself. Her expression was so like Betelgeuse's rather fey dangerous look that even Sarah had to fight a shudder and more than one of the other girls backed away, unwilling to get tangled up in _this _one. Deetz was a weirdo, but just now she was flat-out creepy in a way none of them could have articulated.

Lydia hopped off her bike and put one booted foot on Claire's chest before the other girl could get up - not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make her stay put. "Here's the deal, Claire," she said, her expression now dreadfully impassive. "You're going to leave me alone. You're going to leave my friends alone, or I won't be responsible for what happens to you." She paused. "Well, yeah, actually I probably will, but if you don't want to wind up extremely miserable, I'd back off and go find someone else to torment."

_Betelgeuse_, Sarah thought - she could only imagine what the poltergeist might do, if Lydia let him. Or even if she didn't, if he somehow found a way to detach himself long enough to go after Claire. Sarah had wondered all day just where he was, if he was lurking in the house or - far more likely - following Lydia unseen. It was a creepy thought, but then it was the kind of thing Jareth was capable of, too, which really didn't help. Hopefully he was too busy with getting ready for whatever was to come to bother spying on her much. On them much.

Lydia stepped back, letting Claire get up - her boot had left a nice muddy print all over the front of Claire's blouse, and that huge perm was now full of leaves and twigs. She looked ready to choke Lydia, but it seemed even Claire Brewster had some sense of self-preservation, for all she did was glare.

"This isn't over, Deetz," she snarled, turning away and stalking off, her twittering followers in tow.

"Yes it is," Lydia said, and the simple frankness of her tone was somehow worse than viciousness would have been. Sarah could only shake her head as Lydia picked up her bike. Unpleasant as that had been, it was nothing to what awaited them at the Deetz house - part of why she was going with Lydia was because they were going to have to get some awful explanations out of the way, and she'd figured it would be easier if she was around to back Lydia up.

_Great, _she thought. There was absolutely no way this could possibly end well.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter sees the dreaded Explanation, first to the Deetzes and then the Williams, God help them all, aided and abetted by our favorite poltergeist and goblin king. Sarah's very right - this really _isn't _going to end well. XD


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Here goes…everything, really. Few people are happy in this chapter, though some of them are very amused (I'm looking at you, Betelgeuse). The Explanation, parental trauma, and a wonderfully snooty Delia. Also, I don't know Sarah's parents' names, so if anybody does please let me know.

* * *

It really was ridiculous, Lydia thought, that she was more nervous about explaining this than she'd been about getting it. She loved all four of her parents - even Delia, obnoxious though her stepmother could be - and none of them were going to like having this bomb dropped on them. She didn't exactly relish how much this would upset them all.

"I'm home," she called, her palms more than a little sweaty. "I need to talk to you guys, okay?"

"We both do," Sarah chimed in, and Lydia shot her a grateful look. At least she wasn't in this alone. She unloaded her backpack on the kitchen table as her father came in, looking, as usual, slightly bewildered.

"What is it, Pumpkin?" he asked warily.

"You didn't get expelled, did you?" That was Delia, hard on his heels.

"No," Lydia said, offended. "Look, I need you guys to just listen until I'm through, okay? Don't interrupt me or I'll never get it all out."

Neither of her parents like the sound of that, and they liked still less Barbara's immediate reaction upon seeing Lydia. Her eyes widened, and ghost though she was her face paled. "What - Adam, come here!" She reached out, as if to touch Lydia's hair, but apparently thought better of it. "Lydia, what _happened _to you?"

Both Lydia and Sarah sat, exchanging an uneasy glance. "Like I said, just hear me out - it's kind of a long story, and you might want to corroborate part of it with Juno." She paused. "I _know _you will."

"I…really don't like the sound of that," Adam said, halting beside Barbara. "Lydia, this - what _is _this?" She had no idea what either ghost might be seeing, or if they merely sensed it, but either way the result was the same. Unfortunately.

"It's…partial immortality," she said. "Kind of. I'm still not entirely up on how it exactly works, but apparently it's necessary because I really don't want to get murdered."

"Murdered?" Delia demanded. "By _what_?"

"The Neitherworld."

All four adults jumped, and Lydia put her head in her hands, fighting an urge to tear her hair out - this was _not _what she needed right now. Betelgeuse had materialized next to the sink, his green eyes a little too bright in their sunken sockets. "Juno says the royals wanted me to kill Lyds here, so I made it so nobody can. There's war or some shit going down in another dimension that might spill over here, and since Lyds is the only living link to the Neitherworld, they wanted to get rid of her." He held up a finger, snapping both Maitlands' jaws shut before they could protest. "Ask Juno, she'll tell you the same thing. Probably gonna tell me off for what I did, but she can't undo it."

"Which is where I come in," Sarah sighed. Haltingly, she and Lydia spilled both sides of their tale, to the mounting incredulity of the adults - which was hardly fair, Lydia thought, since two of them were ghosts. This kind of thing shouldn't be so hard for them to swallow.

"Why would you do that, though?" Adam demanded of Betelgeuse, as soon as he was finally able to speak. "What would it matter if she - you're not still trying to marry her, are you?" he added, somewhat ominously.

Betelgeuse snorted. "No," he said. "Shit, Adam, I'm not _that _much of an asshole. I'm not gonna kill her just to satisfy the pansy-ass royals in the Neitherworld. Besides," he added, hitting what they all suspected was the crux of the matter, "I don't need to marry anybody now. Lyds here can still send me back, but nobody else can. And she's a lot safer if she doesn't."

Even with her odd immortality, Lydia still didn't like the sound of that. Just because she couldn't die didn't mean she couldn't get hurt, and she was still capable of feeling pain, even if less so than she'd been before. She fought a shudder, and just barely won. "Anyway," she said, "I'm going to have to leave school at some point, I think, whenever…whatever's going to happen…happens."

"Should leave before that," Betelgeuse said. "Sarah, when you go to the Labyrinth, you ought to take Lyds here with you. _She _can't get hurt, but the rest of you all can." He looked pointedly at her parents and the Maitlands. "If she's here when the shit hits the fan, you're all in danger."

God…Lydia hadn't even thought of that. Her parents were very mortal, and she knew from experience that even ghosts weren't entirely safe. Curious though she was about this Labyrinth, she wanted to go for curiosity's sake, not because something awful might happen to her family if she didn't.

"What about you?" Sarah asked, and Betelgeuse's grin was truly horrible.

"I've got things to take care of first," he said, buffing his (still rather dirty) fingernails on the sleeve of his coat. "Royals might be a giant load of wusses, but I've got some favors owed me I'm going to call in, and there's nothing they can do about it. Down there, a contract's binding."

"That's true," Adam muttered, and Lydia knew he and Barbara were going to run to Juno first chance they got, for corroboration. Which was only smart of them - the only reason _she _believed him was because she'd also met Jareth. She wasn't going on his word alone. "You're sureyou can keep her safe?"

"_I _don't need to anymore, but yeah, I'll keep an eye on her. She's even newer at this than you are, after all." The fact that it was true was the only thing that kept Lydia from bristling. She wasn't a child, for God's sake - she was going on eighteen, and while she might be in over her head she was at least capable of swimming. "Better go with these two when they drop this on Sarah's parents, too. You're used to all this shit, you oughtta talk to them yourselves."

Though Lydia had yet to meet Sarah's parents, she didn't want to imagine how _that _would go - Delia was so weird herself that Lydia couldn't imagine any sane person trusting her at her word, and her father was so nervous and jumpy that he wasn't much more believable. They likely wouldn't be able to see the Maitlands even if they came up here, either, and-

"Beej, could they even see you?" she asked.

"Yeah, they're not exactly the kind of people who'd believe in ghosts," Sarah added.

Betelgeuse gave a laugh that was half a hack, dry and wheezing. "'Course they will," he said. "Poltergeist, remember? Different rules. You need to get ahold of that goblin king of yours," he added, to Sarah. "Your parents are gonna need to meet him, I think."

"She needn't bother."

Even Lydia jumped. She still wasn't used to Betelgeuse showing up unannounced, and Jareth was so unfamiliar he almost freaked her out a little. Ghosts and poltergeists were one thing, but she hadn't ever given much thought to goblins, and none to the sort of people who might rule them. Just what exactly _was _Jareth, anyway? He obviously wasn't a goblin himself, nor was he human, and Betelgeuse probably would have told her if he was any kind of ghost. She wasn't about to ask, though, not yet - he was a little too intimidating a sight in that high-collared coat. On anyone else his hairstyle would have looked ridiculous, but he pulled it off too well for comfort, and she noticed Delia blush out of the corner of her eye.

"Don't tell me you've been following us," Sarah groaned, putting her head in her hands.

"I haven't," Jareth said, with some asperity, "but I know when someone speaks of me. You are right, Betelgeuse - I should accompany you. I really ought to take both girls to the Labyrinth with me soon, for things are moving within the Legendverse more swiftly than I had anticipated. It will not be long now."

Something rather like a cold stone dropped into the pit of Lydia's stomach at that. She'd thought this would start soon, but not _this _soon, and she wasn't sure just how ready she was yet. A glance at Sarah told her her friend was thinking something along the same lines - and Sarah was still mortal. She might have some unknown measure of Jareth's power, but Lydia highly doubted that would stop something killing her if it really tried. And that…really wouldn't end well, if the vibes Lydia was getting from Jareth were any indication.

"Lemme bring some people, too," Betelgeuse said. "If I can. Got some friends and some debtors I can call in."

Jareth didn't look too happy about _that _idea, for which Lydia really couldn't blame him, but help was help. "As you wish. Two days more, perhaps, and then we all must go."

Two days? _Two days?_ That wasn't going to be nearly enough time for Lydia to get used to all her weird heightened senses, and they were strange enough in the normal world - what they'd be like in some place like the Labyrinth, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Oh, it was bound to be fascinating, but she'd be pretty useless if she was too busy staring at some alien flower.

"How long will you be gone?" Barbara asked, appalled.

"I cannot say, not yet. Unfortunately, I will have no way of knowing what Darkness will do until he does it." Jareth obviously wasn't pleased by the thought, and Lydia had a feeling he wasn't used to being unable to predict the future. "I know very little about him and what he is, and thus what he might be capable of - only that he is a very powerful creature, and must not be allowed to leave his own realm if it can at all be avoided. Sarah here insists upon aiding me-" here he shot her a glower, which had absolutely no outward effect on the girl "-and it seems I will require Betelgeuse and Lydia, given how tied they are to the Neitherworld, which is as pleased by this development as little as I. Their platform of non-involvement will not, I think, be able to last long, and then you two might find yourselves involved as well," he said, with a nod at the Maitlands. "I know little of the laws governing the dead, but I would hazard a guess that they might be broken, if the need is dire enough. And I fear it will be."

Both Adam and Barbara looked terribly startled, even more so than Lydia's parents. They were completely tied to the house, so far as any of them knew, but this wasn't the kind of thing they'd want to lift that decree.

"Wonderful," Betelgeuse muttered. "Let's get this out of the way with Sarah's parents, and then I need to borrow you a while, Lyds."

"Why?" she asked warily.

"Some people I need you to meet. You'll be safe enough."

That wasn't terribly reassuring, but she could hardly protest. She _did _trust Betelgeuse's assurance that nothing save him could kill her, even if she trusted little else he said; she probably could go visit the realm of the dead safely, but the idea still freaked her out - she had, after all, been totally human until literally last night. Getting used to the knowledge that she wasn't anymore was going to take a little while. Adam and Barbara, who had only even been in the waiting room, didn't look too thrilled by the thought, either - but Beej had, for his own reasons, decided to protect her, and even before he'd told her, she figured he had to be pretty powerful - the fact that he managed to stop the Maitlands' weird exorcism told her that. If he didn't think he could do it, he probably wouldn't take her there.

"We…better go deal with my parents," Sarah said slowly, and Lydia would swear that under the trepidation in her voice was a faint note of absolute glee. That she wasn't entirely unhappy about dropping this on her parents made Lydia really wonder what they were like. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

The four humans piled into what Lydia had called the Deetz Mobile, a minivan Delia had painted like a bad imitation of Picasso, while poltergeist and goblin king traveled…somehow. The late afternoon sun was losing a battle with incoming thunderheads, which Sarah thought fit the mood nicely - it had been storming the night she'd gone into the Labyrinth, so it seemed somehow fitting now.

Lydia was right in thinking she wasn't totally uneasy about telling all this to her parents. She loved her father dearly, and had even grown somewhat fond of her stepmother, but she knew they both still disapproved of what they saw as her overactive imagination, and she'd received more than one lecture about growing up, facing reality, and putting all those childish daydreams behind her. Her stepmother in particular had no imagination whatsoever, and though she got along with Sarah just fine now, she still didn't understand the girl at all. Jareth and Betelgeuse were a kind of vindication of all Sarah's so-called imaginings, two creatures neither of her parents were going to be able to rationalize away. They were as real as anything, and at times seemed more so than ought to be possible, as though it was everything around them that was a dream.

"What are we going to tell the school?" she asked, as Delia navigated the quiet streets. It was past what rush hour the little town had, so there wasn't much traffic to delay them - possibly unfortunately. "It's going to look weird, both of us disappearing at once."

"We'll think of something," Charles said, fidgeting nervously. "Don't you two worry about that." Sarah could sense his trepidation, though Delia didn't seem unnerved at all, and Sarah had a feeling it would take a hell of a lot more than even a ghost and a goblin king to rattle her.

The door opened as soon as they pulled into the driveway, Sarah's stepmother practically radiating irritation until she saw Lydia's parents. The fact that there were adults around seemed to mollify her a little - a very little - but this still wasn't going to be easy.

"Where have you been, young lady?" she demanded, as though it weren't totally obvious. "You were supposed to be home to do your chores an hour ago."

"She was at our house," Delia said, eying her with something like distaste. Given what Delia herself was wearing - an asymmetrical, eggplant-purple sweater and black slacks - Sarah's stepmother's beige cardigan looked dreadfully boring. "There are some things we need to discuss." Her tone was somewhat imperious, and Sarah found herself liking the woman more and more. _She _couldn't stand up to her stepmother, and her father rarely bothered, but it seemed Delia would accept no attitude. It was about to be a battle royal of snootiness, and oh did Sarah want to watch.

"What did she do_ now_?" her stepmother asked, standing aside to let them in, and both Delia and Lydia seemed disappointed by the décor, which was bland to the point boredom. Champagne carpet, cream walls, a few dull, framed watercolors scattered around - even the _sofa _was a flat shade of beige, giving the room an incredibly monotone look. Why her stepmother insisted on such pale colors with a two-year-old in the house, Sarah didn't know, but she spent a great deal of her time with a spray-bottle of spot remover and a sponge.

"It's nothing she's done," Delia said, "or anything Lydia did. A goblin king and my house's apparently resident poltergeist want to kidnap them for a while, and we thought you ought to have some warning."

Lydia somehow managed to choke back a laugh, though Sarah wasn't quite so successful, and her stepmother glared, a glare that promised there would be Words later. Let her - once she'd met Jareth and Betelgeuse, she wasn't likely to be able to work up much ire.

She also very obviously thought the whole thing was some nasty joke, which Sarah had to admit was really the only sane reaction anyone who hadn't dealt with any of this could have. Sure, it was coming from an adult, but given that the adult was someone like Delia, Sarah really couldn't fault her stepmother's skepticism - though she _could _be amused by it. Could, and was.

"…_What?_" The woman was staring at Delia as though she were utterly insane. "What on _Earth _are you talking about?"

"Us."

"Oh, Christ," Lydia muttered, covering her face with one hand. "Nice timing, Beej."

Betelgeuse had appeared in the corner with his usual complete lack of warning, looking as out of place as a potato in a cherry pie. Though neither his clothes nor his face were filthy anymore, he still looked, well, _dead_; in the strong light of the Williams living-room he couldn't even pull off the heroin-addict look. His poison-green eyes glittered with what was unmistakably amusement, all the brighter when contrasted with the dullness of his surroundings.

Sarah's stepmother let out a strangled shriek, and even Sarah jumped - Jareth's sudden comings and goings she could handle, but she hadn't been around Betelgeuse long enough to be used to his. She'd never admit aloud just how much he actually creeped her out, though she had a feeling he knew it anyway, and just chose not to capitalize on it for fear of Lydia's inevitable retribution. Lydia's, and possibly Jareth's, though she suspected it was more the thought of Lydia's wrath that made him behave - more or less.

"I do try," he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and Sarah noticed Lydia had even managed to get him to brush his teeth. Man, did she wish she had that kind of power over Jareth. "Goblin king and I really do need to gank these two for a while, so you'd better think about what kind of excuse you're gonna give their school or whatever."

"Who are-" Sarah's stepmother started, for once so completely stricken she couldn't even snap.

"Mom, meet Betelgeuse," Sarah said.

"The resident poltergeist," Lydia added, almost wearily. "Who has incredibly bad timing."

"Only from a certain point of view," Betelgeuse said, still grinning nastily. "Dunno where my cohort is, but I'm giving you fair warning, too."

"I'm here." Jareth sounded even more weary than Lydia - clearly he wasn't taking near so much joy from this as Betelgeuse, but then he probably wouldn't, Sarah thought. He might be some sort of trickster in his own world, but of a very different sort from Betelgeuse, who seemed to be reveling in it with an almost childish delight. Given that this was her stepmother they were talking about, Sarah couldn't help but share it, to a certain degree. "I promise you I will look after Sarah while we are away, though I think she will not need it much."

"You…" Those two had managed what Sarah had not thought possible - rendered her stepmother almost entirely speechless, her face so drained of color it was practically the same shade as the walls. "Andrew, get in here!"

"Here we go," Sarah muttered. Her father was far less stolid and set in his ways; she didn't want to think how he'd react to all this, and in his case she didn't want it to upset him too much.

Unfortunately, her stepmother's tone had managed that even before he entered the living room, and the scene before him halted him dead in his tracks. He was a medium sort of man - medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, of only average height, his features pleasant but unmemorable. Sarah had taken much more after her mother, to the point where they were almost identical.

"What-" he started, echoing his wife, and Betelgeuse rolled his eyes.

"These kids," he repeated. "We need to steal them. Deal with it."

"Tactful," Jareth murmured, and Sarah snorted. "Though quite succinct. I do not know how long we will be away, but we do indeed need to borrow your daughter. I need her help, but I promise I will return her in once piece."

"You-what in the _hell _are you talking about?"

Now it was Sarah who rolled her eyes, and poured out the entire story of how she'd met Jareth - how she'd wished Toby away and had to traverse the Labyrinth to get him back, all the creatures she'd met and friends she'd made there, and though she saw mounting incredulity in both her parents' faces, the fact that Jareth was standing _right there _kept either from interrupting her.

"And you want to take her back to this Labyrinth?" her father asked faintly, when she'd finished.

"_Yes_," Jareth said, irritated, and Sarah could see he was inwardly cursing humans. "In two days' time, so prepare however you must, and allow her to do so without hindrance." There was a subtle warning in his voice, that said if they didn't he'd make them regret it.

In spite of everything, Sarah had a hard time not giggling at her parents' rather dumfounded expressions. All the weirdness they'd accused her of since childhood finally seemed vindicated.

As it would turn out, though, they weren't to have two days. Claire, wonderfully idiotic Claire, was about to complicate matters. Greatly.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter shows just what depths of stupidity Claire Brewster is actually capable of, and throws Jareth's plans in particular straight out the window, plus Lydia's little trip to the Neitherworld with Betelgeuse


End file.
